At first Jeffy had preferred not to take this seriously. He assumed to regard it as a delicate sarcasm on the part of his new friend. He closed first one watery eye and then the other. It was such a good joke. But Roger Oakley only reiterated his intention with unmistakable seriousness. It was no joke, and the outcast promptly sat up in bed, while a look of slow horror overspread his face. “But I ain't never worked, Mr. Oakley,” he whined, hoarsely. “I don't feel no call to work. The fact is, I am too busy to work. I would be wasting my time if I done that. I'd be durn thankful if you could reform me, but I'll tell you right now this ain't no way to begin. No, sir, you couldn't make a worse start.” “It's high time you went at something,” said his self-appointed guide and monitor, with stony conviction, and he backed his opinion with a quotation from the Scriptures. Now to Jeffy, who had been prayerfully brought up by a pious mother, the Scriptures were the fountain-head of all earthly wisdom. To invoke a citation from the Bible was on a par with calling in the town marshal. It closed the incident so far as argument was concerned. He was vaguely aware that there was one text which he had heard which seemed to give him authority to loaf, but he couldn't remember it. Roger Oakley looked at him rather sternly over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles, and said, with quiet determination, “I am going to make a man of you. You've got it in you. There's hope in every human life. You must let drink alone, and you must work. Work's what you need.” “No, it ain't. I never done a day's work in my life. It'd kill me if I had to get out and hustle and sweat and bile in the sun. Durnation! of all fool ideas! I never seen the beat!” He threw himself back on the bed, stiff and rigid, and covered his face with the sheet. For perhaps a minute he lay perfectly still. Then the covers were seen to heave tumultuously, while short gasps and sobs were distinctly audible. Presently two skinny but expressive legs habited in red flannel were thrust from under the covers and kicked violently back and forth. A firm hand plucked the sheet from before the outcast's face, and the gaunt form of the old convict bent grimly above him. “Come, come, Jeffy, I didn't expect this of you. I am willing to help you in every way I can. I'll get my son to make a place for you at the shops. How will you like that?” “How'll I like it? You ought to know me well enough to know I won't like it a little bit!” in tearful and indignant protest. “You just reach me them pants of mine off the back of that chair. You mean well, I'll say that much for you, but you got the sweatiest sort of a religion; durned if it ain't all work! Just reach me them pants, do now,” and he half rose up in his bed, only to encounter a strong arm that pushed him back on the pillows. “You can't have your pants, Jeffy, not now. You must stay here until you get well and strong.”