like him to be in, when he knows what a common sort of a feller I am,
an' what little I've got, an' how much I need all that I've got, if I'm
goin' to keep straight any more."

"Mr. Kimper," said the lady, "try not to look at it in that way. He is
not trying to break you down; he is trying to satisfy himself. Don't
give way, and he dare not. If he did not believe a great deal of what
you have been saying to him, he would not keep up his interest in it.
Mr. Kimper, it may not seem possible to you, but there is a chance of
your doing better work in the missionary cause for that young man than
anybody and everybody else in this town has yet been able to do."

"Oh, nonsense, Mrs. Prency!" said the cobbler, dropping the shoe and
looking up incredulously. "He's got a thousand times as much head-piece
as I have, an' if he can't learn what he wants to from other people
there ain't the slightest likelihood of my ever learnin' him anythin'."

"Sam," said Mrs. Prency, earnestly, "in the book that you have been
reading so industriously, from which you have learned so much, and from
which I hope you will continue to learn a great deal, don't you
remember something that is said about the Lord having selected the
feeble ones of this world to confound the wise?"

Sam looked down meditatively at the dropped shoe, and replied in a
moment,--

"Well, now you speak of it, ma'am, I think I do."

"You certainly will believe that as much as everything else you have
read there?"