“Are you going to have the dancing again?”
“M. le Curé,” answered Knoups, “I am quite willing to live in peace and friendship with every one; but I ought to be allowed to earn a few stivers when I want them.”
“And do you think, Knoups, that this dancing business is all profit? Do you know that people of position are shy of your house for that very reason? Why do the professors from St Aloysius’ College, and all their students,—and the Christian Brothers, and all their schoolboys—why do they always pass the ‘Sun’ by? You have a good head for reckoning, I’ve often heard, Master Knoups. Did you ever figure out what it would come to in a year if two hundred young fellows were to come every week, or say every fortnight, to have a glass of beer?”
Knoups’ whole face shone with excitement.
“Why, one could lay out a skittle-ground with that!” he cried.
“Well, are you going to repent of your ways, and come to church again, Knoups?”
“Would you give me absolution if I did?”
“If you had no more dancing—why, there would be no further reason for refusing it.”
Knoups sat still, and thought for a little. Then he took his broad carpenter’s pencil, wrote on the paper, “less twenty gulden for the roof,” and said:
“We’ll see, M. le Curé, we’ll see. And, after all, I’m not the worst.”