way to amuse me. At length he discovered there was a growing sympathy in
my favour, and assumed another attitude to secure my departure. He began
to talk somewhat in the following strain.

"I know Green is a smart boy, but they say the Browns have him here to
run on errands, and he is strongly suspected of not being what he should
be, in regard to honesty."

One or two of the honest countrymen spoke in my behalf, and the whole
was turned off in a jovial way, not wishing, as I suppose, to injure my
feelings; at which he, with a sigh that bespoke the consummate
hypocrite, added:

"Well, Green, God bless you. You had a sainted mother, and I always
respected your old father, but you boys, I fear, are all in the downward
road to ruin. You had better return home and be a good boy. Beware of
the company of the Browns, as you know they are bad characters, and that
I, and many others, held them at a distance, when they were in
Lawrenceburgh."

The rest of the company retired while he was thus lecturing me so
sanctimoniously.

No one can imagine the feelings I then had. I was at first confounded,
then enraged, to witness the conduct of that black-hearted villain, he
little suspecting that I knew him to be the very man that was in the
room the day before, dressed in disguise. How could I feel otherwise.
There he was lecturing me about duty, as if he had been a saint. It is
true, he sustained that character at home. I had known him for many
years as a leading man in the very respectable church to which he there