“... and she says to me,” he was concluding “'Mr. Flathers,' she says, 'it's a privelege to help such as you. A man what's been in the gutter times without number, and bore the awful horrors of delirium tremins four times and still can feel the stirrings of Christianity in his bosom.'”
Donald looked at him and laughed. Here was evidently a fellow sinner.
“So you've straightened up, have you? How does it feel?”
Mr. Flathers cast a sidelong glance upward as if to size up the handsome young gentleman on horseback.
“Mighty depressin',” he confessed, “with a thirst that's been accumulatin' for weeks and weeks, and a sick wife, and a adobted child that ain't spoke a word for seven years. But I'm restin' on the Lord. He well pervide.”
“Oh, you'll get along!” said Don, feeling uncommonly lenient toward his fellow men. “Here's a dollar if that will help you out a bit.”
“It will,” said Mr. Flathers reassuringly; “it undoubtedly will. I got much to be thankful for, I know that. Fer instance I never was a poor relation! That's more than lots of men kin say! The fact are, there ain't airy one in my whole family connection what's got any more 'n I have!”
The shower that had been threatening began now in earnest, and Donald started toward town at a brisk canter, but before he had gone two squares the rain was driving in sheets across the street, and he was obliged to dismount and seek shelter in the doorway of an isolated building that stood at the end of the common. It was a double door with the upper parts in colored glass, on which was boldly lettered,
The CANT-PASS-IT SALOON.
In one of the windows a placard informed the famishing residents of Billy-goat Hill that their thirst might not be assuaged until after twelve o'clock on Sunday night.