tunity. In the city he was master of his own actions, and
it occurred to him that he would never have a better opportunity.
Hence his affirmative answer.

Clarence Brown smiled slightly to himself, for he anticipated fun. He
produced the cigar, lighted it by his own, and gave Sam directions how
to smoke. Sam proved an apt pupil, and was soon puffing away with
conscious pride. He felt himself several years older. But all at once
he turned pale, and drew the cigar from his mouth.

"What's the matter?" asked Brown, demurely.

"I--don't--know," gasped Sam, his eyes rolling; "I--feel--sick."

"Do you? Don't mind it; it'll pass off."

"I think I'm going to die," said Sam, in a hollow voice. "Does smoking
ever kill people?"

"Not often," said Brown, soothingly.

"I think it's goin' to kill me," said Sam, mournfully.

"Lie down on the bench. You'll feel better soon."

Sam lay down on his back, and again he wished himself safely back at
the deacon's. New York seemed to him a very dreadful place. His head
ached; his stomach was out of tune, and he felt very unhappy.

"Lie here a little while, and you'll feel better," said his companion.
"I'll be back soon."

He walked away to indulge in a laugh at his victim's expense, and Sam
was left alone.

CHAPTER XVII.

TIM BRADY.

An hour passed, and Clarence Brown did not reappear. He had intended
to do so, but reflecting that there was no more to be got out of Sam
changed his mind.

Sam lay down on the bench for some time, then raised himself to a
sitting posture. He did not feel so sick as at first, but his head
ached unpleasantly.

"I won't smoke any more," he said to himself. "I didn't think it would
make me feel so bad."

I am sorry to say that Sam did not keep the resolution he then made;
but at the time when he is first introduced to the reader, in the
first chapter, had become a confirmed smoker.

"Why don't Mr. Brown come back?" he thought, after the lapse of an
hour.

He waited half an hour longer, when he was brought to the conviction
that Brown had played him false, and was not coming back at all. With
this conviction his original suspicion revived, and he made up his
mind that Brown had robbed him after all.

"I'd like to punch his head," thought Sam, angrily.

It did not occur to him that the deacon, from whom the money was
originally taken, had the same right to punch his head. As I have
said, Sam's conscience was not sensitive, and self-in