"No," he said, firmly and decidedly.
Both of his companions looked disappointed and angry.
"What did you bring him for?" he heard Boyd's companion say to him in an under tone, while a frown darkened upon his brow.
The reply did not reach his ear, but he felt that his company was no longer pleasant, and rising, he bade them a formal good-evening, and hurriedly retired. That little word no had saved him. The scheme was, to win from him his forty dollars, and then involve him in "debts of honor," as they are falsely called, which would compel him to draw upon his father for more money, or abstract it from his employer, a system which had been pursued by Boyd, and which was discovered only a week subsequent, when the young man was discharged in disgrace. It then came out, that he had been for months in secret association with a gambler, and that the two shared together the spoils and peculations.
This incident roused Thomas Howland to a distinct consciousness of the danger that lurked in his path, as a young man, in a large city. He felt, as he had not felt while simply listening to his father's precept, the value of the word no; and resolved that hereafter he would utter that little word, and that, too, decidedly, whenever urged to do what his judgment did not approve.
"I will be free!" he said, pacing his chamber backward and forward. "I will be free, hereafter! No one shall persuade me or drive me to do what I feel to be wrong."
That conclusion was his safeguard ever after. When tempted, and he was tempted frequently, his "No" decided the matter at once. There was a power in it that was all-sufficient in resisting evil.