"Yes; it's a very easy thing to say, but it's an almost impossible thing to do. You don't know how hard it is for a fellow who is bound down by the chains of habit, to keep a resolution like that. Why, bless you, I have made it a thousand times and broken it as often. I took my last pledge three months ago, and up to this time I have kept it; but I may go back on it before I am an hour older. If some old friend should come along and say: 'Murray, have something?' I'd go with him without thinking. It is a sort of second nature to me. I wish I could be thrown more into the society of such fellows as you are, and less into the company of rivermen. Nine out of ten of them spend their money as fast as they make it, and that's what keeps them on the river."
George leaned his elbows on the railing, rested his chin on his hands, and looked down at the men who were at work in the barge, but made no reply. The longer he listened to Mr. Murray, the less he liked him.
"Now, you can do me a great favor, if you will," continued the clerk, "one that I shall always remember, although I shall never be able to repay it. I wish you would stay by me as much as you can while you are off duty. Make the office your headquarters. Come in at any hour of the day or night—I shall not always be at work, you know—and if you hear anybody invite me to take a short walk with him, just tip me the wink. That will put me in mind of my pledge and help me to decline the invitation."
"But will you decline?" asked George. "Won't you go, anyhow?"
"Of course I'll not go; I'll decline every time. All I want is somebody close at my elbow to keep my pledge constantly in mind. If you will do that for me during this trip, I am sure that by the time it is ended I shall have fallen into the habit of saying 'No,' and then I shall be all right. To tell you the truth, there's a good deal depending upon your answer," added Murray, who thought by the expression on George's face that he did not much like the part he was expected to perform. "My bad habits have lost several very fine positions for me, and if I don't break them off, I shall lose this and every other one I get. But I have tried it often enough to know that I can't abandon them without help. What do you say?"
"I say that I will do anything I can to help you," was George's answer.
"Thank you!" exclaimed Murray. George's reply argued well for the success of certain plans upon which he had determined, and he could scarcely conceal his exultation. "By the way," he added, "are you on speaking terms with Mr. Richardson?"
"I am quite intimate with Tony, who steered this boat up here for me to-day, but I am not much acquainted with his father, although I have visited at his house by Tony's invitation."
"Well, you'll not say a word to him, or anybody else, about what happened on board the Quitman?" said Murray.
"Not a word."