"Well, he ain't worth minding, any how. Come, now, are you going to drink or not? Take some punch? That's the stuff. There ain't no spirit in it hardly. Or may be you'll have some gin."
And the butcher's boy poured out a glass half full of gin and water, and passed it to Frederick, while he took good care to prepare another glass for himself. Peter drank. So did Frederick—not because he loved the liquor, but because he was good-natured. He did it to oblige his former school-fellow. I said he did it because he was good-natured. I ought rather to have said, perhaps, that it was because he had not courage enough to do right. I am not sure but that is a more correct reason than the other.
Poor Frederick! From the moment he drank that glass of gin, he felt unhappy. All day long he thought of what he had done, and it robbed him of all his peace.
"But never mind, Fred," said his companion, "you are sorry you did it, and you will never drink any more. Let that comfort you."
I will drop the thread of Frederick's history here, for the present. Perhaps I may take it up again, though, by and by. The reason I have given any sketch at all of this boy's adventures, I frankly confess it, is that by comparing him with Samuel, and noticing where he stumbled, and how he stumbled, you might learn exactly what those traits of character were by which the latter was able to get over the difficulties he met with, and to resist the temptations that surrounded him.