Will drew himself up stiffly. Didn’t Mr. Sampson know he and Tom were two very different boys?
“I have more than I can attend to, now, sir,” he replied; “what with all my studies and the Lyceum; you know I have Geology and Chemistry this term, and I really haven’t time for those other things even if I felt any desire.”
Mr. Sampson looked grieved, and transferring his hand from Tom’s shoulder to Will’s, he stooped and whispered something in his ear.
“Wish I knew what ’twas,” thought Tom, walking slowly on.
Directly Mr. Sampson was beside him. “You didn’t answer my question, Tom.”
“I—oh! I’m dreadfully busy, too; you know there’s hen-roosts to rob and melons to hook and all the circuses to tend to. I really couldn’t if I wouldn’t.”
It was very rude and saucy in Tom, but street-corners and saloon-steps soon teach a boy to be that.
Mr. Sampson, however, instead of looking horrified and disgusted, laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder again, and said, “My dear boy, you may work for Satan all your life,—work hard, too,—and depend upon it, he’ll turn you off at last without even a reward of merit. He promises well, I know. He may pay up a while in counterfeit coin most as good as the real, except that it won’t pass in another world, but he’ll give you the slip some time. There is only one Master whose ‘promise to pay’ is good for this world and the world to come. I’ve served Him twenty-five years, and I ought to know something about it, hadn’t I? Come to my house to-night and let us tell you what a good Master he is. A few of us are going to meet to talk over this very thing. This evening, remember, at seven o’clock.”
“Going over to the parson’s?” inquired Tom, strolling around by the deacon’s that night, and finding Will on the steps, using the last bit of daylight for his book. “Thought I’d go along, if you was.”
Will looked at him a full minute without speaking. What a battle there was between good and evil in that sixty seconds! Then he said coolly and deliberately, “No; I’m not going, and I don’t know what it is to you if I was.”