"I will do something handsome for you, Buck, and be your best friend."
"I don't mind that," I replied.
"I am not in the habit of drinking ardent spirits, or even wine, to excess, when I am at home, though I don't belong to the temperance society," said he. "I didn't take much, and my friends would not let me off. I don't know that I ever was really intoxicated before in my life."
"It is a bad habit."
"But it is not my habit, and I mean to stop drinking entirely," he replied, earnestly; and I could not help thinking how humiliating it must be for a great man like him to confess his folly to such a poor boy as I was.
"We are nearly home now, sir," said I, after we had ridden a while in silence.
"You will remember your promise—won't you, Buck?"
"Certainly I will, sir."
"Take this," he added, crowding something into my hand.
"What is it, sir?" I asked.