"Done what?" asked the other boy.
"Paid him off," said Mike.
"What, Jake Grumble?"
"Yes."
"Good. Tell me all about it."
And Mike did tell him all about it.
"Well, I do say for it, Mike," said the other boy, after listening to the whole story, "you are just the queerest fellow that I ever saw or heard of."
"But don't you think that was about the best way to pay him off, after all?" asked Mike.
"Well," said the other boy, after a moment's pause, "I declare I don't know but it was, when I come to think of it."
And don't you think it was the best way to pay him off, reader? I do, and I should be glad if every body would learn to pay such debts in very much the same way. It may be a very queer mode of taking revenge. But it seems to me quite a sensible one; and I am sure it is a thousand times better than the mode that people so often choose. If I am not greatly mistaken, indeed, it is just the mode that is recommended in the word of God, which says, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."