then said:

"I'll take it."

"Very well," replied Mr. Bright, putting on his coat and hat; "I am
ready, and will go with you now."

"I might say good-bye to your family," said "Dodd"; "they have been so
kind to me."

"I prefer that you should not," replied Mr. Bright. "I have no desire
to have you know them further. You have forfeited all claim to their
respect, or regard, or courtesy even, and if you never redeem yourself,
I do not care to have them see you again!"

It was a terrible thrust. It was like a sword in the bones to the
recipient of the cutting words. "Dodd" reeled under them as though
smitten with a veritable blade of steel.

But they were doing good work for this abnormal young man. These cuts,
made by the sword of truth, when wielded by the hands of Mr. Bright,
laid open to "Dodd" Weaver the secret recesses of his own soul, and he
saw there such foulness as he had never before suspected. Not one word
had his former teacher said to him which was not true. His final
refusal to permit him to say adieu to his family, "Dodd" felt was just
and strictly in accordance with his deserts. This hurled him down to
where he belonged, and made him realize what a wretch, what an outcast,
he was.

Don't you suppose, good people, that it would be a great deal better,
all around, if we each one got what we really deserve just when we
deserve it? But we don't; and so we flatter ourselves that because the
desert does not come to-day it will not come to-morrow, not next day,
and we hope it will never come. And so we keep on in our wrong ways.
The book has it: "Because sentence against a wicked work is not
executed speedily, therefore the hearts of men are fully set in them to
do evil." This was written a long time ago, but it is as true to-day
as it ever was. I think that even the most confirmed skeptic would
admit the truth of the passage.

So Mr. Bright went with "Dodd" to his lodgings, helped him pack, and
got him to the depot. They escaped the police. This was not a hard
thing to do. It seldom is, if one has really been doing wrong.

"Here is ten dollars," said Mr. Bright to the ticket agent. "I want
you to give me a ticket to a point the farthest away from the city
possible for that money."

"What line?" inquired the somewhat surprised official.

"I don't know, and I don't want to know," returned Mr. Bright. "I want
a ticket such as I have described, and I want you to tell me which
train t