“I built Matthews' meeting-house, and if I hadn't found a man like him to fill the pulpit I'd have turned the blamed thing into a warehouse to store groceries in. But I found him, and he's doing mighty well—mighty well! He isn't any of your ranting trance religionists; he's practical, and, in one way, the funniest cuss you ever laid eyes on. Me and him have big times in our way. He looks after the souls of men while I sometimes help a little in patching up their bodies. He tells me that you and a friend of yours haven't made any business connection yet. My house is pretty well supplied, but this is our best season of the year, and a good man always comes in handy. You look like you've got a good head on them broad shoulders, and I want to give you a start, so if you will show up here in the morning with your friend, I'll put you to work in the office and stow him away somewhere.”
“You are very, very kind, Mr. Whipple,” Fred said, a gratified flush on his face; “but you have had no recommendation of me, and—”
“I don't want none,” the merchant said, firmly. “You see, I've already heard about you. Long before me and you met you had cast your bread on the water, and it has already come back. I've heard about you. Anybody these days can bring a scrap of paper with indorsements scribbled on it, but the best recommendation is the sort that crawls along ahead of a fellow. Yes, I've heard about you, and, to be plain, that's why I sent for you. Even if I didn't have no opening right now, it would pay me to rub against men that—well, that believe like you do and act like you have acted.”
“I suppose you mean”—Walton was quite embarrassed now—“I suppose Mr. Matthews has been speaking of what my friend told him of our ups-and-downs together; but really I couldn't let that sort of thing stand as an indorsement of me, Mr. Whipple. Dick is young and enthusiastic. It seems that he has never had a close friend before, and he naturally exaggerates my—”
“Say, look here,” the merchant broke in, with a smile, “you really don't know how funny that sounds. In this day and time, when a man in my position has to set and listen to folks spout for the hour about how good and worthy they are, why—well, to see a chap actually denying the favorable things which have been said behind his back is a downright curiosity. Why, the very fact that you are talking this way shows plain enough what you are. Along with what I've picked up about you and the—the general look of you, now that you are at close range—why, if you was to lay down a whole batch of written recommendations I'd chuck 'em in that stove. I'm a judge of human faces and of men, and I know you mean well, and that is all I ask.”
“It is very good of you, Mr. Whipple,” Walton said, his glance on the floor. “I feel like we could get on together. I know I'd do my best to please you.”
“Well, then, there is nothing more to be said,” old Whipple answered. “Bring that boy in to-morrow morning, and we'll make some sort o' a start.”
Fred sat silent. He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to the genial face in the green light. “I must be frank and open with a man as generous as you are, Mr. Whipple. If I am to work here we ought to understand each other thoroughly. There are some things which you must know about me, or I cannot consent to enter your employment, for it would be deceiving you.”
“Oh, that's it!” Whipple said, awkwardly. “Still, you mustn't feel that I am requiring any explanations of—of a private nature, for I am not.”
“You ought to know more than you do know about me, at all events,” Walton went on. “I'd feel better if nothing at all was hidden from your knowledge. I haven't lived right, Mr. Whipple. I went wrong—frightfully wrong. I got in debt—it is worse than that. I misappropriated a considerable sum of money belonging to my father. He is a stern, hard man, and demanded as much of me as he would have done of a stranger. I left home to escape arrest. You may think I ought to have submitted to the law. I simply couldn't, for I felt that my father, when his passion cooled, would regret his step, and, moreover, I felt that, with my freedom, I could apply myself and eventually restore the loss.”