“Mr. Bartram,” said the cobbler, “as I’ve already said, you had a good deal better talked to somebody else.  But, seem’ you’ve come to me, I’ve only this to say to you, an’ I hope you can make somethin’ out of it, because I give you my word I’ve made more out of it than ever I did out of anythin’ else on the face of the earth.  I went to jail for stealin’.  I hadn’t ever been an honest man in my life.  The only reason I hadn’t been in jail all my life was that I hadn’t been caught.  At last I was caught, an’ I was sent up, an’ I don’t mind sayin’ that I think my sentence was mighty light, considerin’ all the heavy mischief that I’d done durin’ my life.  While I was in jail I was talked to by a man that used to come through there to talk to the prisoners on Sundays.  An’ about all he said to me was to read me a lot o’ things that Jesus Christ said when He was alive in this world, an’ told me to go ahead an’ do all them things just as well as I knowed how to, an’ if I did ’em all well as far as I could I’d find out a good deal more in the course of time.”

“Go on,” said the lawyer.

“I haven’t anything to go on with, Mr. Bartram,” said the cobbler, “except that I took his advice, an’ ain’t ever been sorry for it, an’ I wish I’d got it a good deal sooner.  I’m just the same old two-an’-sixpence that I was before I went away.  That is, I’m always tired an’ always poor an’ always wishin’ I didn’t have to do any work.  But when there comes a time when I get a chance to do somethin’ wrong an’ make somethin’ by it, I don’t do it, although there was a time when I would have done it.  I don’t keep from doin’ it for anything that I can make, ’cause I always go home a good deal worse off than I might have been.  I hope you get something out of what I’m tellin’ you, Mr. Bartram?”

“But, Sam, my dear fellow,” said the young man, “all this doesn’t mean anything; that is, so far as religion goes.  You are simply trying to live right, whereas you used to live wrong.  Haven’t you learned any more than that?”

“Well, Mr. Bartram,” said Sam, ceasing to jot down measurements, and looking at his stubby pencil as if he had a question to ask, “that’s all I’ve learned.  An’ I s’pose you bein’ the kind o’ man you are,—­that is, well born an’ well brought up, plenty o’ money an’ never done nothin’ wrong that you know of,—­I s’pose that don’t seem much to you; but I tell you, Mr. Bartram, it’s a complete upset to my old life, an’ it’s such a big one that I’ve not been able to get any further since, an’ I don’t mind talkin’ honestly to any fellow-man that talks about it to me.  I don’t mind sayin’ honestly that it’s so much more than I’m equal to livin’ up to yet that I haven’t had any time to think about goin’ any further along.  See here, Mr. Bartram, can you tell me somethin’ I can do besides that?”

“Why, Sam,” said the lawyer, “that’s an odd question to ask me.  I have seen you in church frequently since you were first a young man, ten years older than I. You have been told frequently what else you ought to do; and what I came in particular to ask you was as to how far you’ve done it, or been able to do it, or were trying to do it.”