“Shade of Beelzebub! Where did you spring from?” shouted the astonished man.
“Please, Mister, my nose was bleedin’ an’ I lorst my way lookin’ fer warter, an’ here I am on Jording’s stormy banks.”
“You young scamp, you found water, didn’t you, more than you needed? For the love of St. Patrick, if it isn’t the spalpeen that split his sides laughing at me falling on the ice yesterday!”
The old man peered over the steps, and Moses recognized the loose-jointed long-limbed individual who had provided him with such mirth on the previous day.
“Just to think I’ve got to heat up more water and fill this tank again for a good-for-nothing urchin like you! Begorra! It’s worth it though to see you get a good ducking!”
Through the open door could be heard the strains of “Pull for the shore” sung with heart and soul by the intermediate class, and to that lively air Moses made for the exit as expeditiously as his sodden garments would allow.
“My religion’s purty well wartered now, I guess,” said Moses, sheepishly, to Clarence, who met him at the end of the fateful corridor. That youth had followed his country friend from the Sunday-school hall, but not in time to direct his erring steps.
“You are one simp,” he comforted, at the same time putting his own overcoat about the shivering boy.
At the door of the Crump household, Moses stood before the daughter of the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an overwhelming embarrassment. His body glowed so that steam might have been seen arising from his dripping garments. He almost yearned for incarceration in an ice-house. His personal pulchritude had not been enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. More than ever Moses longed for the encircling arms of Betty.
On the morrow, before returning home, he made several purchases with the money his mother had slipped into his hand as she whispered, “Hev a good time, Mosey, but don’t fergit to say yer prayers reglar.”