The next day he astonished me by telling the whole business to his father. This was quite outside all my codes. Uncle Nicodemus sprang it upon me at the midday meal. “You been sayin’ queer things, George,” he said abruptly. “You better mind what you’re saying.” “What did he say, father?” said Mrs. Frapp. “Things I couldn’t’ repeat,” said he. “What things?” I asked hotly. “Ask ’_im_,” said my uncle, pointing with his knife to his informant, and making me realise the nature of my offence. My aunt looked at the witness. “Not—?” she framed a question. “Wuss,” said my uncle. “Blarsphemy.” My aunt couldn’t touch another mouthful. I was already a little troubled in my conscience by my daring, and now I began to feel the black enormity of the course upon which I had embarked. “I was only talking sense,” I said. I had a still more dreadful moment when presently I met my cousin in the brick alley behind the yard, that led back to his grocer’s shop. “You sneak!” I said, and smacked his face hard forthwith. “Now then,” said I. He started back, astonished and alarmed. His eyes met mine, and I saw a sudden gleam of resolution. He turned his other cheek to me. “’It it,” he said. “’It it. _I’ll_ forgive you.” I felt I had never encountered a more detestable way of evading a licking. I shoved him against the wall and left him there, forgiving me, and went back into the house. “You better not speak to your cousins, George,” said my aunt, “till you’re in a better state of mind.” I became an outcast forthwith. At supper that night a gloomy silence was broken by my cousin saying, “’E ’it me for telling you, and I turned the other cheek, muvver.” “’E’s got the evil one be’ind ’im now, a ridin’ on ’is back,” said my aunt, to the grave discomfort of the eldest girl, who sat beside me. After supper my uncle, in a few ill-chosen words, prayed me to repent before I slept. “Suppose you was took in your sleep, George,” he said; “where’d you be then? You jest think of that me boy.” By this time I was thoroughly miserable and frightened, and this suggestion unnerved me dreadfully but I kept up an impenitent front. “To wake in ’ell,” said Uncle Nicodemus, in gentle tones. “You don’t want to wake in ’ell, George, burnin’ and screamin’ for ever, do you? You wouldn’t like that?” He tried very hard to get me to “jest ’ave a look at the bake’ouse fire” before I retired. “It might move you,” he said. I was awake longest that night. My cousins slept, the sleep of faith on either side of me. I decided I would whisper my prayers, and stopped midway because I was ashamed, and perhaps also because I had an idea one didn’t square God like that. “No,” I said, with a sudden confidence, “damn me if you’re coward enough.... But you’re not. No! You couldn’t be!” I woke my cousins up with emphatic digs, and told them as much, triumphantly, and went very peacefully to sleep with my act of faith accomplished.