"To-morrow's income will provide for to-morrow. The Lord shows he's down on this savin' and hoardin' up of things, for he makes 'em get musty right away; and if anything spiles on my hands I'm mad enough to bite myself in two." "But if you treat all stragglers as you do me, you do not give away odds and ends and what's left over. This coffee is fine old Java, and a more delicate ham I never tasted." "Now you hit me twice. I will have the best for myself, instead of practicin' self-denial and economy. Then I'm always wantin' to get some second-hand victuals to give away, but I daresn't. You see I read the Bible sometimes, and it's the most awfully oncomfortable book that ever was written. You know what the Lord says in it--or you ought to--about what we do for the least of these his brethren; that means such as you, only you're a sort of black sheep in the family; and if words have any sense at all, the Lord takes my givin' you a dinner the same as if I gave it to him. Now s'pose the Lord came to my house, as he did to Mary and Martha's, and I should git him up a slimpsy dinner of second-hand victuals, and stand by a-chucklin' that I had saved twenty-five cents on it, wouldn't that be meanness itself? Some time ago I had a ham that I couldn't and wouldn't eat, and they wouldn't take it back at the store, so I got some of the Lord's poor brethren to come to dinner, and I palmed it off on them. But I had to cuss myself the whole evenin' to pay up for it! A-a-h!" "By Jove!" cried Haldane, dropping his knife and fork, and looking admiringly at his host, who stood on the hearth, running his fingers through his shock of white hair, his shriveled and bristling aspect making a marked contrast with his sleek and lazy cat and dog--"by Jove, you are that I call a Christian!" "Now, look here, young man," said Mr. Growther, wrathfully, "though you are under no obligations to me, you've got no business makin' game of me and callin' me names, and I won't stand it. You've got to be civil and speak the truth while you're on my premises, whether you want to or no." Haldane shrugged his shoulders, laughed, and made haste with his dinner, for with such a gusty and variable host he might not get a chance to finish it. As he glanced around the room, however, and saw how cosey and inviting it might be made by a little order and homelike arrangement, he determined to fix it up according to his own ideas, if he could accomplish it without actually coming to blows with the occupant. "Who keeps house for you?" he asked. "Didn't I tell you nobody could stand me!" "Will you stand me for about half an hour while I fix up this room for you?" "No!" "What will you do if I attempt it?" "I'll set the dog on you." "Nothing worse?" asked Haldane, with a laughing glance at the lazy cur. "You might take something."