reel end of the line began slowly to "wind up," yet again, and the
party of the second part let him wind.




CHAPTER XIII.

Rome was not built in a day nor is a character formed in one round of
the sun. A man never reaches a great height at a single stride, and
many times he slips and falls back, even after he has been climbing a
great while. This is a thing that is common to the race.

"Dodd" Weaver possessed this trait. I say that he did, and shall
proceed to prove it, in two ways, which I plainly state for the benefit
of the two classes of people who can only see the same set of facts
from opposite points of vision.

For the practical people, those who believe only what they see,--the
unimaginative and severely scientific, if you will,--I present in proof
of the proposition stated above, the record of the boy's life up to
this point--the bare facts that have transpired. For those who bow
down at the shrine of pure logic, who accept no conclusion but such as
has been hoisted into place by a lever of syllogism, with a major
premise for a fulcrum, and a minor premise on the long end of the
bar,--for these, I submit the familiar form:

A--All men slip and fall back into old ways, more or less (chiefly
more), when striving to change a course of life that has become fixed
by habit.