"Well," says Boniface. "Now mark me, young man, I will pay you, punctually, but you mustn't pay yourself extra wages!"
"Pay myself?" says the unsophisticated youth.
"Musn't take 'the run' of the till!"
"Run of the till?"
"No knocking down, sir!"
"O, bless you!" quoth the verdant youth, "I am as good-natured as a lamb; I never knocked any body down in all my life."
"Ha! ha!" ejaculated the landlord; "he is green, so I won't teach him what he don't know. What's your name?"
"Absalom Hart, sir."
"Good Christian-like name, and I've no doubt we shall agree together, for a long time; so go to work."
Absalom "pitched in," a whole year passed, Absalom and the landlord got along slick as a whistle. Another year, two, three, four; never was there a more attentive, diligent and industrious bar-keeper behind a marble slab, or armed with a toddy stick. He was the ne plus ultra of bar-keepers, a perfect paragon of toddy mixers. But one day, somehow or other, the landlord found himself in custody of the sheriff, bag and baggage. Business had not fallen off, every thing seemed properly managed, but, somehow or other, the landlord broke, failed, caved in, and the sheriff sold him out.