"Why certainly. I thought you understood that to be my proviso."
"But, Tode, don't you think that is forcing a fellow?"
"Not at all. You are perfectly free, of course, to do as you please. If you please to decline a good offer, merely because you won't promise not to drink what you say you don't drink, and not to sell what you say you don't want to sell, why that is your own matter, of course, and I can not help myself."
Jim mused a little.
"Well, you see," he said presently, "I do now and then take a drop of wine, not enough to amount to much, and I'm in no danger of doing it very often, for I honestly don't care much for it."
"No. What then?"
"Why, I'd have to stop that, of course, if I signed your pledge."
"Of course. What then?"
"Why, then," and here Jim broke down and laughed, and finally added: "Tode, I wish you were not such an awful fanatic about this."
"But since I am, what is to be done?"