I said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must be cultivated.'
My brother rattled innocently on—
'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about “matches,” which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, when you began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches, I remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three times; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew it was Ben that burnt that man up.'
I praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked—
'Are you going to give him up to the law?'
'No,' I said; 'I believe that this will be a lesson to him. I shall keep an eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if he stops where he is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him.'
'How good you are!'
'Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this.'