XII
The Reform Of William
To William the idea of reform was new and startling and not wholly unattractive. It originated with the housemaid whose brother was a reformed burglar now employed in a grocer's shop.
"'E's got conversion," she said to William. "'E got it quite sudden-like, an' 'e give up all 'is bad ways straight off. 'E's bin like a heavenly saint ever since."
William was deeply interested. The point was all innocently driven in later by the Sunday-school mistress. William's family had no real faith in the Sunday-school as a corrective to William's inherent wickedness, but they knew that no Sabbath peace or calm was humanly possible while William was in the house. So they brushed and cleaned and tidied him at 2.45 and sent him, pained and protesting, down the road every Sunday afternoon. Their only regret was that Sunday-school did not begin earlier and end later.
Fortunately for William, most of his friends' parents were inspired by the same zeal, so that he met his old cronies of the week-days—Henry, Ginger, Douglas and all the rest—and together they beguiled the monotony of the Sabbath.
But this Sunday the tall, pale lady who, for her sins, essayed to lead William and his friends along the straight and narrow path of virtue, was almost inspired. She was like some prophetess of old. She was so emphatic that the red cherries that hung coquettishly over the edge of her hat rattled against it as though in applause.
"We must all start afresh," she said. "We must all be turned—that's what conversion means."
William's fascinated eye wandered from the cherries to the distant view out of the window. He thought suddenly of the noble burglar who had turned his back upon the mysterious, nefarious tools of his trade and now dispensed margarine to his former victims.