“O, yes.  I understand now.  Very well, Gordon; I rather think I can meet your views.  Yesterday my barkeeper was sent to prison for getting into a scrape while drunk, and I want his place supplied until he gets out.  Come and tend bar for me a couple of weeks, and I will give you a receipt in full of all demands.”

Gordon shook his head and looked grave.

“What’s the matter?  Won’t you do it?”

“No, sir.  I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because I have sworn neither to taste, touch, nor handle the accursed thing.  Neither to drink it myself, nor put it to the lips of another.  No, no, Mr. King, I can’t do that.  But I will sell your groceries for you three days in the week, for four weeks.  Part of my time is already regularly engaged.”

“Go off about your business!” said the store-keeper, his face red with anger at the language of the reformed man, which he was pleased to consider highly insulting.  “I’ll see to collecting that bill in a different way from that.”

By this time Gordon was learning not to be frightened and discouraged at every thing.  His wife had so often showed him its folly, that he felt ashamed to go to her again in a desponding mood, and therefore cheered himself up before going home.

In other quarters he found rather better success.  Not all of those he owed were of the stamp of the two to whom application had last been made.  In less than six months he had worked out nearly a hundred dollars of what he owed, and had regular employment that brought him in six dollars every week, besides earning, by odd jobs and light porterage, from two to three dollars.  His wife rarely let a week go without producing her one or two dollars by needle-work.  Little comforts gradually crept in, notwithstanding all their debts were not yet paid off.  This was inevitable.

By the end of twelve months Gordon found himself clear of debt, and in a good situation in a store at five hundred dollars a year.

“So much for ‘Time, Faith, Energy,’” he said to himself, as he walked backwards and forwards, in his comfortable little home, one evening, thinking of the incidents of the year, and the results that had followed.  “I would not have believed it.  Scarcely a twelvemonth has passed, and here am I, a sober man and out of debt.”

“Though still very far from the advanced position in the world you held a few years ago, and to which you can never more attain,” said a desponding voice within him.  “A man never has but one chance for attaining ease and competence in this life.  If he neglects that, he need not waste his time in any useless struggles.”

“Time, Faith, Energy!” spoke out another voice.  “If one year has done so much for you, what will not five, ten, or twenty years do?  Redouble your energies, have confidence in the future, and time will make all right.”

“I will have faith in time; I will have energy!” responded the man in Gordon, speaking aloud.