“I’ve been requested by the schoolmaster,” said the Rev. Mr. Staples, putting his handkerchief back into his broad felt hat with a gasping smile, “to bring our young friend before you for a matter of counsel and discipline.  I have done so, Sister Medliker, with some difficulty,”—­he looked down at John Bunyan, who again felt his arm and was satisfied that it was longer—­“but we must do our dooty, even with difficulty to ourselves, and, perhaps, to others.  Our young friend, John Bunyan, stands on a giddy height—­on slippery places, and,” continued Mr. Staples, with a lofty disregard to consecutive metaphor, “his feet are taking fast hold of destruction.”  Here the child drew a breath of relief, possibly at the prospect of being on firm ground of any kind at last; but Sister Medliker, to whom the Staples style of exordium had only a Sabbath significance, turned to her offspring abruptly:—­

“And what’s these yer doin’s now, John? and me a slavin’ to send ye to school?”

Thus appealed to, Johnny looked for a reply at his feet, at his arm, and at the kettle.  Then he said:  “I ain’t done nothin’, but he”—­indicating Staples—­“hez been nigh onter pullin’ off my arm.”

“It’s now almost a week ago,” continued Mr. Staples, waving aside the interruption with a smile of painful Christian tolerance, “or perhaps ten days—­I won’t be too sure—­that the schoolmaster discovered that Johnny had in his possession two or three flakes of fine river gold—­each of the value of half a dollar, or perhaps sixty-two and one half cents.  On being questioned where he got them he refused to say; although subsequently he alleged that he had ‘found’ them.  It being a single instance, he was given the benefit of the doubt, and nothing more was said about it.  But a few days after he was found trying to pass off, at Mr. Smith’s store, two other flakes of a different size, and a small nugget of the value of four or five dollars.  At this point I was called in; he repeated to me, I grieve to say, the same untruthfulness, and when I suggested to him the obvious fact that he had taken it from one of the miner’s sluice boxes and committed the grievous sin of theft, he wickedly denied it—­so that we are prevented from carrying out the Christian command of restoring it even one fold, instead of four or five fold as the Mosaic Law might have required.  We were, alas! unable to ascertain anything from the miners themselves, though I grieve to say they one and all agreed that their ‘take’ that week was not at all what they had expected.  I even went so far as to admit the possibility of his own statement, and besought him at least to show me where he had found it.  He at first refused with great stubbornness of temper, but later consented to accompany me privately this afternoon to the spot.”  Mr. Staples paused, and sinking his voice gloomily, and with his eyes fixed upon Johnny, continued slowly:  “When I state that, after several times trying to evade me on the