“So you will not give me money to pay my fine?” groaned “Dodd.”

“Not one cent,” again answered Mr. Bright, as he showed the young man to the door.

CHAPTER XXII.

As they walked through the hall, however, “Dodd” dragging himself along reluctantly, a kindlier mood took possession of the school teacher.  He paused, and, turning to the young man, said: 

“See here.  I have a plan that has just come to me, and I will give you the benefit of it.  I am convinced that you will never be any better than you are now if you continue to live in this city.  Your companions are here, and so are your old haunts and associations.  I will do this for you.  I will go to your room with you and help you get together whatever clothing you have.  Then I will go with you to the depot, and will buy you a ticket to the farthest point from here that ten dollars will take you to.  I don’t want to know where that place is.  I don’t want ever to see you or hear from you again, unless you are a different man.  I want to give you one more chance to stand on your own feet.  That is all I have to say.  You may take it or leave it, as you will.”

“Dodd” hesitated a minute, and then said: 

“I’ll take it.”

“Very well,” replied Mr. Bright, putting on his coat and hat; “I am ready, and will go with you now.”

“I might say good-bye to your family,” said “Dodd”; “they have been so kind to me.”

“I prefer that you should not,” replied Mr. Bright.  “I have no desire to have you know them further.  You have forfeited all claim to their respect, or regard, or courtesy even, and if you never redeem yourself, I do not care to have them see you again!”

It was a terrible thrust.  It was like a sword in the bones to the recipient of the cutting words.  “Dodd” reeled under them as though smitten with a veritable blade of steel.

But they were doing good work for this abnormal young man.  These cuts, made by the sword of truth, when wielded by the hands of Mr. Bright, laid open to “Dodd” Weaver the secret recesses of his own soul, and he saw there such foulness as he had never before suspected.  Not one word had his former teacher said to him which was not true.  His final refusal to permit him to say adieu to his family, “Dodd” felt was just and strictly in accordance with his deserts.  This hurled him down to where he belonged, and made him realize what a wretch, what an outcast, he was.

Don’t you suppose, good people, that it would be a great deal better, all around, if we each one got what we really deserve just when we deserve it?  But we don’t; and so we flatter ourselves that because the desert does not come to-day it will not come to-morrow, not next day, and we hope it will never come.  And so we keep on in our wrong ways.  The book has it:  “Because sentence against a wicked work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of men are fully set in them to do evil.”  This was written a long time ago, but it is as true to-day as it ever was.  I think that even the most confirmed skeptic would admit the truth of the passage.