A firm hand plucked the sheet from before the outcast's face, and the gaunt form of the old convict bent grimly above him.
“Come, come, Jeffy, I didn't expect this of you. I am willing to help you in every way I can. I'll get my son to make a place for you at the shops. How will you like that?”
“How'll I like it? You ought to know me well enough to know I won't like it a little bit!” in tearful and indignant protest. “You just reach me them pants of mine off the back of that chair. You mean well, I'll say that much for you, but you got the sweatiest sort of a religion; durned if it ain't all work! Just reach me them pants, do now,” and he half rose up in his bed, only to encounter a strong arm that pushed him back on the pillows.
“You can't have your pants, Jeffy, not now. You must stay here until you get well and strong.”
“How am I going to get well and strong with you hounding me to death? I never seen such a man to take up with an idea and stick to it against all reason. It just seems as if you'd set to work to break my spirit,” plaintively.
Roger Oakley frowned at him in silence for a moment, then he said:
“I thought we'd talked all this over, Jeffy.”
“I just wanted to encourage you. I was mighty thankful to have you take hold. I hadn't been reformed for over a year. It about seemed to me that everybody had forgotten I needed to be reformed, and I was willing to give you a chance. No one can't ever say I ain't stood ready to do that much.”
“But, my poor Jeffy, you will have to do more than that.”
“Blamed if it don't seem to me as if you was expecting me to do it all!”