"This man," Mr. Linden went on, "instead of having his jewels set in gold, to wear or to sell, went round the town flinging them at his neighbour's windows--or his neighbour's cats,--as you do, Phil, with your very bright powers of head and tongue. Why don't you make a man of yourself--and use those powers for something worth while?" "You never see me doin' it, sir!" said Phil, answering the most interesting part of Mr. Linden's address. "Don't I?" said Mr. Linden,--"I see and hear a good many things. But nobody can get on in the world after such a prickly fashion,--why even a porcupine smooths himself down before he tries to go ahead. If you were to be a lawyer Phil, you'd fight your clients instead of helping them fight,--and if you were a farmer, you'd be like the man who burnt up three stacks of his hay because the fourth got wet." Phil reddened, though he couldn't help smiling, and was evidently getting angry. "That 'ere farmer was a big fool!" he said. "Yes, we are agreed upon that point," said Mr. Linden,--"I daresay he would have said so himself next day. Well Phil--this was not what I wanted to talk to you about to-day--much as I like to see smart boys make the most of themselves. I want to know exactly what it was that you heard Reuben Taylor say about Miss Derrick." Phil's eyes opened unmistakeably. "I never heerd him say nothing about her!" he said boldly. "Then why did you say you did?" said Mr. Linden, with the cool face of one who knows his ground. "I didn't!" said Phil. "I'm blessed if I did." "No you are not--" said Mr. Linden gravely,--"people are never blessed who do not speak truth. And you have shut both doors by which such a blessing might have come in this case, Phil." "Who said I ever said so, sir?" Phil asked confidently. "You told Dr. Harrison, for one," said Mr. Linden. "I never spoke a word to Dr. Harrison--" Phil began and checked himself. "I never said anything but the truth, sir!" "What truth did you say to him?" said Mr. Linden. "I wish you would do the same for me. The roughest truth, Phil, is pleasanter to ray ears than the smoothest falsehood." "I said nothin' but what _was_ truth, sir," said Phil, perplexedly, as if he felt caught in a snare. "I didn't think you meant _that_." "That is precisely what I meant." "'Twarn't nothing but the truth, sir." "Well--" said Mr. Linden,--"I never was afraid of the truth yet, and I don't mean to begin now. You didn't say I had cut your ears off, did you Phil?" "I didn't say nothin' about you, sir, good or indifferent." "That's something," said Mr. Linden with unmoved gravity. "What else did you say?" "It was down to Neanticut, sir," said Phil--"I told Reuben Taylor as how he'd druv her down, Joe Deacon said he had; and Reuben said Joe had made a mistake. That's the hull of it, sir." "Who is _her?_" said Mr. Linden. "She--Miss Faith Derrick, sir." Phil was getting very uncomfortably red in the face.