Presently he pulled my tunic and said, “Won’t you give me a minute, sir?”

“What’s the trouble?” I said.

“Sir,” he said, with a little catch in his voice that I can hear now,
“you’ve got something I haven’t.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“It’s like the singing of a little song, and it gets into my heart. I want
it. Won’t you tell me how to get it? I want it.”

“Sonny,” I said, “it’s for you. You can have it at the same price I paid
for it.”

“Begorra,” says he, “you will tell me to give up my religion, you will!”

I said, “If God has put anything in your life that helps you to be a
better and a nobler and a braver man, He doesn’t want you to give it up.”

“He doesn’t?” he asked. “What am I to give up, then?”

And I replied, “Your sin.”

The boy said again, “You’re a gentleman.”

If I had said one word about his religion or his creed, my line would have
snapped and I would have lost my fish.