"No; the preacher chap sed it'd go to morchel perdition; and I s'pose he knows."
Mr. Blemish raised his eyes to the ceiling, and an expression of sublime pity stole over his countenance. Grif edged closer to the door, as if anxious to be dismissed.
Mr. Blemish folded his hands with a sort of pious horror, and exclaimed--"I am amazed!"
"What are you amazed at?" inquired Mr. David Dibbs. "I've seen hundreds of boys like this here one--he ain't no different to the rest. They're a bad, vicious lot."
Grif assented to the last remark by a nod.
"But our duty is clear," said Mr. Blemish, as if in answer to a voice within him, perhaps the voice of morality. "Listen to me"--this to Grif, with a forefinger warningly held up; "I am about to give you a chance of reforming."
"All right; I'm agreeable," said Grif, in a tone that betokened utter indifference of the matter.
"In my capacity as President of the Moral Boot Blacking Boys' Reformatory, I will provide you with a boot-stand, a set of brushes, and a pot of the best blacking. You can polish boots?"
"I've only got to rub at 'em, I s'pose," said Grif, wishing his own feet, with their dirty bluchers, would fly off his legs.
Mr. Blemish waived the question as one of detail, which it was evidently beneath him to enter upon.