JOHN MONDAY soon found that his resolution to turn over a new leaf was not an easy one to keep; but he persevered against difficulties which he had never for one moment anticipated. It did not take him long to discover that the path of duty, honestly followed, is often thorny and full of stumbling-blocks for steps unaccustomed to the road, and that bad habits are not easily shaken off. Then, too, Herbert Hambly, the acquaintance who had seemed so desirable in every way only a short while since, could not be made to understand all at once that John Monday no longer desired to know him; and on one occasion the young man waylaid the boy in the street, and demanded why he persisted in avoiding him.
"Because my master says I'm to have no more to do with you," John Monday answered, thinking it best to speak plainly; "and so you mustn't come to the shop to see me again."
"But we can meet elsewhere," the other suggested craftily. "Don't you want to win back that half-crown you lost last week?"
"I'm not going to bet again."
"Oh, indeed! Why not, pray?"
"Because it's wrong," was the blunt reply.
Herbert Hambly glanced at the boy shrewdly, then shrugged his shoulders with would-be carelessness, and broke into a scornful laugh.
"Come now, that's rich!" he cried. "What a funny chap you are, to be sure! The other day you were all for making your fortune, and now— Hulloa! Why is that little girl staring at us?"
It was Mousey on her way home from school. She had recognised Herbert Hambly as the young man of whom Mr. Harding disapproved, for she had seen him with John Monday on several occasions; but she was not prepared to find them apparently in deep conversation together, knowing the acquaintance had been forbidden, and in her astonishment paused on the opposite side of the street to look at them.
"It's Mr. Harding's little cousin," the boy said hastily. "Please understand you must not come to the shop again on any account, and I'm not going to meet you anywhere else. Good-afternoon," and he crossed to Mousey's side, whilst Herbert Hambly stared after him with a look of blank astonishment.