“Never can tell. You may be sent off to some out-of-the-way place in the West—in case you get a job, which I doubt very much—and God knows whether I’ll be here when you come back. Got to look these things in the face, you know. I’m seventy-five. If I do say it myself, a pretty good little man for my age—wiry as a piece of steel—but, as I say, you never can tell.” A few minutes before nine o’clock, Oliver October appeared at the home of the Reverend Mr. Sage, somewhat out of breath and visibly agitated. “I’m awfully sorry to be so late,” he apologized. “Father and I had a long and trying confab and I—I couldn’t get away. He gave it to me hot and heavy to-night, Uncle Herbert. The worst yet. God knows I hate to say it, but I’m glad I’m going to-morrow, and the way I feel now, I hope I’ll never see the place again.” “No, you shouldn’t say it, Oliver,” said Mr. Sage. “Poor man, he is really not responsible these days. I wish you could see your way clear to remain here.” “You don’t believe he is—unbalanced, do you? I mean out of his mind?” “By no means. He is as sound as a dollar, mentally. But his nerves, my boy—his nerves are shattered. He thinks of nothing but the fate he believes to be in store for you. Every day is an age to him. You will not be thirty until a year from next October. Do you know how long that seems to him? Endless! You see, Oliver, for nearly thirty years he has lived in dread of—well, of the absurd thing that gypsy woman said. He tries to laugh it off, but I know it has never been out of his thoughts. Once you have passed your thirtieth birthday, he will be another man. He sleeps on thorns now. It is no wonder that he is cross and irritable and unreasonable. He is not deceived by the recent change of front on the part of Joe Sikes and Silas Link, both of whom now loudly profess not to believe a word of the fortune. He knows they are trying to cheer him up.” “He really is afraid that I am going to be hanged before I’m thirty?” “I fear that is the case, Oliver.” “And that is why he wants me to stay here, so that he can watch over and protect me?” “Exactly. Only he can not force himself to come out flatly and say so. He is ashamed to say it to you, Oliver.” “If I really believed that to be the case, Uncle Herbert, I—I would stay.” “It is the case, my lad,” said the minister earnestly. “I’ll—I’ll think it over to-night,” said Oliver. “To-morrow I will put it up to him squarely. If he says he wants me to stay _for that reason_, I will chuck everything and—and go into the store.” “A year or so out of your life, Oliver, is a very small matter. But a year out of his is a great one, especially as it will seem like a hundred to him. Yes, my boy, think it over. And think of him more than of yourself while you are about it.” “I guess maybe I deserve that slap, Mr. Sage. It touched the quick, but—I guess I deserve it.”