"Oh, I'm fine and dandy. How's yourself?" He was prancing along by the man's side, with a gait peculiar, even to himself. The orphans all had a curious, orphan-like habit of rendering pedestrianism as difficult as possible. The twins would stagger around for a whole day tied together at the ankles, and Tim now displayed this family peculiarity by hirpling along, one foot up on the smooth, hard roadway, the other plunging far into the deep snow.
"Very well, thank you," said Mr. Scott. "Where are you going?"
"Down to see John." His tone revealed his pride in the daring confession. It was a splendid thing to have such a wicked man for a chum, a man whom folks said even the minister feared.
"Ah! What are you reading now?"
"'We haven't got anything new for to-night. I was wishin' I had a book." He looked up slyly, to see if the hint had taken effect.
The minister fell easily into the trap. "Dear me! I'm sorry I didn't know that. You might have had 'Nicholas Nickleby.' I'll send it to school with Tommy to-morrow, if you promise you won't read any of it in school, eh?"
"All right; 'course not," cried Tim righteously.
"And what have you been reading since you finished 'Pilgrim's Progress'?"
The minister looked down enviously at the small, hobbling figure. If he had only been wise enough, he reflected, to go to that man with this child's faith and good-fellowship, they might have been on such terms of intimacy now, and he might have helped to cure that look of pain in John McIntyre's eyes.
"We've been readin' about a chap named Job. It's in the Bible. Ever read it?"