"Listen to me, my boy. I can take you out of this vile hole, but only by subscribing a hundred dollars to the debt of the German Methodist church, repairing their broken window, giving them a new Bible, changing my custom from the market to Shantz the butcher, who doesn't sell the best of meat but does charge the highest prices, asking Bolton to raise the salary of old Nokkerman, reducing the amount of my bill to Petrus von Schlenker"—
"I didn't do anything to any of these people," interrupted Jack.
"Whether you did or not," said the doctor, "doesn't affect the case. You did something, whatever it was, to disturb that meeting; those men were all there, they are all among the complainants, and must be satisfied in order to persuade them to withdraw their complaint."
"Didn't—didn't Nuderkopf Trinkelspiel want anything?" asked Jack falteringly.
"Oh!" exclaimed the doctor, "it was you who made him sit upon that crooked pin, was it? How did you do it?"
Jack, finding himself trapped by his own words, meekly explained the operation which led to Nuderkopf's spasmodic loquacity, both visitors holding their mouths as he did so. Then the doctor resumed the disturbed line of the conversation by asking:
"What do you propose to do?"
"Oh!" said Jack, raising his head, "I'll be a minister, and preach to bad boys all my life, if you will only get me out of here, and send me off to some seminary where nobody knows me."
"Umph!" grunted the doctor. "And what sort of a living do you suppose you'll earn in that business?"
"'Quench not the Spirit,'" quoted the minister, and the doctor inwardly acknowledged the justice of the rebuke, though he hypocritically remarked that he had spoken thus only to test Jack's sincerity.