As for Tillie, a great throb of relief thrilled through her as she heard the doctor utter this Napoleonic lie—­only to be followed the next instant by an overwhelming sense of her own wickedness in thus conniving with fraud.  Abysses of iniquity seemed to yawn at her feet, and she gazed with horror into their black depths.  How could she ever again hold up her head.

But—­Miss Margaret, at least, was safe from the School Board’s wrath and indignation, and how unimportant, compared with that, was her own soul’s salvation!

“Why didn’t Tillie say it was yourn?” Mr. Getz presently found voice to ask.

“I tole her if she left it get put out I am addicted to novel readin’,” said the doctor glibly, and with evident relish, “it might spoil my practice some.  And Tillie she’s that kind-hearted she was sorry far me!”

“And so you put her up to say it was Elviny’s!  You put her up to tell lies to her pop!”

“Well, I never thought you ’d foller it up any, Jake, and try to get Elviny into trouble.”

“Doc, I always knowed you was a blasPHEmer and that you didn’t have no religion.  But I thought you had anyhow morals.  And I didn’t think, now, you was a coward that way, to get behind a child and lie out of your own evil deeds!”

“I’m that much a coward and a blasPHEmer, Jake, that I ‘m goin’ to add the cost of that there book of mine where you burnt up, to your doctor’s bill, unlest you pass me your promise you ’ll drop this here subjec’ and not bother Tillie with it no more.”

The doctor had driven his victim into a corner.  To yield a point in family discipline or to pay the price of the property he had destroyed—­one of the two he must do.  It was a most untoward predicament for Jacob Getz.

“You had no right to lend that there Book to Tillie, Doc, and I ain’t payin’ you a cent fur it!” he maintained.

“I jus’ mean, Jake, I ‘ll make out my bill easy or stiff accordin’ to the way you pass your promise.”

“If my word was no more better ‘n yours, Doe, my passin’ my promise wouldn’t help much!”

“That’s all right, Jake.  I don’t set up to be religious and moral.  I ain’t sayed my prayers since I am old enough a’ready to know how likely I was, still, to kneel on a tack!”

“It’s no wonder you was put off of church!” was the biting retort.

“Hold up there, Jake.  I wasn’t put off.  I went off.  I took myself off of church before the brethren had a chanct to put me off.”

“Sammy!” Mr. Getz suddenly and sharply admonished his little son, who was sharpening his slate-pencil on the window-sill with a table-knife, “you stop right aways sharpenin’ that pencil!  You dassent sharpen your slate-pencils, do you hear?  It wastes ’em so!”

Sammy hastily laid down the knife and thrust the pencil into his pocket.

Mr. Getz turned again to the doctor and inquired irritably, “What is it to you if I teach my own child to mind me or not, I’d like to know?”