old me to go ahead
an' do all them things just as well as I knowed how to, an' if I did
'em all well as far as I could I'd find out a good deal more in the
course of time."

"Go on," said the lawyer.

"I haven't anything to go on with, Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler,
"except that I took his advice, an' ain't ever been sorry for it, an' I
wish I'd got it a good deal sooner. I'm just the same old
two-an'-sixpence that I was before I went away. That is, I'm always
tired an' always poor an' always wishin' I didn't have to do any work.
But when there comes a time when I get a chance to do somethin' wrong
an' make somethin' by it, I don't do it, although there was a time when
I would have done it. I don't keep from doin' it for anything that I
can make, 'cause I always go home a good deal worse off than I might
have been. I hope you get something out of what I'm tellin' you, Mr.
Bartram?"

"But, Sam, my dear fellow," said the young man, "all this doesn't mean
anything; that is, so far as religion goes. You are simply trying to
live right, whereas you used to live wrong. Haven't you learned any
more than that?"

"Well, Mr. Bartram," said Sam, ceasing to jot down measurements, and
looking at his stubby pencil as if he had a question to ask, "that's
all I've learned. An' I s'pose you bein' the kind o' man you are,--that
is, well born an' well brought up, plenty o' money an' never done
nothin' wrong that you know of,--I s'pose that don't seem much to you;
but I tell you, Mr. Bartram, it's a complete upset to my old life, an'
it's such a big one that I've not been able to get any further since,
an' I don't mind talkin' honestly to any fellow-man that talks about it
to me. I don't mind sayin' honestly that it's so much more than I'm
equal to livin' up to yet that I haven't had any time to think about
goin' any further along. See here, Mr. Bartram, can you tell me
somethin' I can do besides that?"

"Why, Sam," said the lawyer, "that's an odd question to ask me. I have
seen you in church frequently since you were first a young man, ten
years older than I. You have been told frequently what else you ought
to do; and what I came in particular to ask you was as to how far
you've done it, or been able to do it, or were trying to do it."

"You come to the wrong shop, then, Mr. Bartram," said the cobbler.
"When a man's been livin' wrong all his life an' has had somethin' put
into him to make him feel like turnin' round an' livin' r