“I will try to keep him up,” said he, “as well as I can, but I can’t do it alone. If you do go, don’t leave us long. Whenever I find him dull, and can’t cheer him up no how I can fix it, by talk, or fun, or sight seein’ or nothin’, I make him vexed, and that excites him, stirs him up with a pot stick, and is of great sarvice to him. I don’t mean actilly makin’ him wrathy in airnest, but jist rilin of him for his own good, by pokin’ a mistake at him. I’ll shew you, presently, how I do it.”
As soon as Mr. Hopewell rejoined us, he began to inquire into the probable duration of our visit to this country, and expressed a wish to return, as soon as possible, to Slickville.
“Come, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, tapping him on the shoulder, “as father used to say, we must ‘right about face’ now. When we are at home let us think of home, when we are here, let us think of this place. Let us look a-head, don’t let’s look back, for we can’t see nothin’ there.”
“Indeed, Sam,” said he, with a sad and melancholy air, “it would be better for us all if we looked back oftener than we do. From the errors of the past, we might rectify our course for the future. Prospective sin is often clothed in very alluring garments; past sin appears in all its naked deformity. Looking back, therefore—”
“Is very well,” said Mr. Slick, “in the way of preachin’; but lookin’ back when you can’t see nothin’, as you are now, is only a hurtin’ of your eyes. I never hear that word, ‘lookin’ back,’ that I don’t think of that funny story of Lot’s wife.”
“Funny story of Lot’s wife, Sir! Do you call that a funny story, Sir?”
“I do, Sir.”
“You do, Sir?”
“Yes, I do, Sir; and I defy you or any other man to say it ain’t a funny story.”
“Oh dear, dear,” said Mr. Hopewell, “that I should have lived to see the day when you, my son, would dare to speak of a Divine judgment as a funny story, and that you should presume so to address me.”