doctor, with a calm aside
elevation of his clear profile, and not the slightest quickening of
his even voice.

"Then ye don't believe there's a man livin' capable of givin' away
his all for the Lord an' His poor any more'n I do, an' I calculate
you jedge so from the workin's of your own heart an' knowin' what
you'd do in like case, jest like me," said Simon Basset.

Doctor Prescott made a quick motion, and the color flashed over his
thin face. "I made no such assertion," he said, hotly, for his temper
at last was up over his icy bonds of will.

"Looks so," said Simon Basset.

"You have no right to make such a statement, sir," returned the
doctor, and his lips seemed to cut the air like scissors.

"What is it, then?" returned the other. "Are you afraid the young
fellow will come into property, an' then you'll have to give up too
much to the Lord?"

The veins on Doctor Prescott's forehead swelled visibly as he looked
at Simon Basset's hateful, bantering face.

"There's another thing I'm willin' to promise," continued Simon
Basset. "If that young feller comes into money, an' gives it away,
I'll do more than give away a quarter of my property--I'll believe
anything after that. I'll get religion. But--I won't agree to do that
unless you back me up, doctor. That ought to induce you--the prospect
of savin' a brand from the burnin'; an' if I ain't a brand, I dun'no'
who is."

"I tell you, sir, I'll have nothing to do with it!" shouted Doctor
Prescott. The minister at his side looked pale and scared as a woman.

"Then," said Simon Basset, "it's settled. You an' me won't agree to
no sech damn foolishness, because we both on us know that there's no
sech Christian charity an' love as that in the world; an' if there
should turn out to be, we're afraid we'd have to do likewise. I
thought I was safe enough proposin' sech a plan, doctor."

There was a great shout of laughter, in spite of the respect for
Doctor Prescott. In the midst of it the doctor sprang to his feet,
looking as none of them had ever seen him look before. "Get a paper
and pen and ink," he cried, turning to Lawyer Means; "draw up the
document that this man proposes, and I will sign it!"

Chapter XVII

The paper which Lawyer Eliphalet Means, standing at the battered and
hacked old desk whereon Cyrus Robinson made out his accounts, drew up
with a sputtering quill pen--at which he swore under his breath--was
as fully elaborated and as formal in ev