“Ah, Mr. Flathers,” remonstrated Mrs. Ivy, with a finger on her lip, “never forget that whom He loveth He chasteneth.”
“I don't, Mrs. Ivy, I don't. I keep that in mind. If it wasn't fer that, Mrs. Ivy, I declare I don't know what I would do. Now you comin' to-day was a answer to prayer! I just ast that some way would be pervided 'fore the rent man come back at six o'clock. I didn't say in my prayer what way, I just said a way, that a way would be pervided. And when I seen you and the young lady turnin' in the alley, I sez to Maria, 'never try to shake my faith no more, the clouds has been lifted!'”
Mrs. Ivy, who was much more given to dispensing morals than money, shifted her position.
“Mr. Flathers,” she said, looking at him with what she conceived to be a searching glance, “do you ever drink?”
Assuring himself that Chick had gotten the can quite out of sight, Phineas looked at her reproachfully:
“Me? Why, Mrs. Ivy, I thought everybody knowed that since I joined the Church—of course I ain't denying that there was a time when I knowed the taste of liquor. There ain't no good denying that, and, besides confession is good fer me, it humbles my spirit, Mrs. Ivy, it keeps me from being a publican.”
“And tobacco?” queried Mrs. Ivy. “Liquor and tobacco go hand in hand, they are twin evils. Are you addicted to the use of tobacco?”
“Not me!” said Phineas, truthfully for once. “I ain't soiled my lips with a seegar for over twenty years, and you couldn't git me to chew if you chloroformed me. Ef liquor is the drink, terbaccer is the food of the devil, as I see it.” Mrs. Ivy beamed upon him, as she opened the silver bag at her belt. “I shall report your case at our next meeting,” she said with enthusiasm. “I shall quote your very words. And now I am going to pin this little badge on you, this little white badge that tells the world you belong to the Anti-Tobacco League. You have the honor of wearing what few of our greatest statesmen can wear! You have proven that a humble laborer can lead the way to Reform.”
Miss Lady appeared at this point with the Boarder, who like most individuals of his class, complained continuously of the quantity and quality of his food.
“You find us in a bad way, Mis' Squeerington,” Phineas said, offering her a bottomless chair with the air of a Christian martyr. “If my sister Myrtella knowed the half of what we was passin' through she wouldn't continue to steel her heart against us.”