"Men
often speak their real thoughts in a passion."
"Do you see that little white cottage away off there, just at the
edge of the wood? Two tall poplars stand in front."
Thus spoke to the stranger one who had heard him address the
landlord.
"I do. What of it?" he answered.
"The man you asked for lives there."
"Indeed!"
"And what is more, if he keeps on as he has begun, the cottage will
be all his own in another year. Jenks, here, doesn't feel any good
blood for him, as you may well believe. A poor man's prosperity is
regarded as so much loss to him. Leslie is a good mechanic--one of
the best in Milanville. He can earn twelve dollars a week, year in
and year out. Two hundred dollars he has already paid on his
cottage; and as he is that much richer, Jenks thinks himself just so
much poorer; for all this surplus, and more too, would have gone
into his till, if Leslie had not quit drinking."
"Aha! I see! Well, did Leslie, as you call him, ever try to get a
drink here, since the landlord promised never to let him have
another drop?"
"Twice to my knowledge."
"And he refused him?"
"Yes. If you remember, he said, in his anger, '_May I be cursed_, if
I sell him another drop.
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