I will take your word upon it.'
The Lifter did not wince under the harangue. He did not, indeed,
look at his father at all, but kept his eye upon Murfrey.
'And,' said he, 'before I reply, may I ask what you ought to do to
anybody guilty of slandereen? He looked with a full face of hate upon
Joe. It will be perceived by this that he was not in the fullest sense
'converted;' for you 'must pray for them that persecute and calumniate
you.' I am like The Lifter in this matter. I never pray for my
culumniator, but I pray for guidance as to how I may _crush_ him. My
prayer, I may add, has now and again been heard.
'With respect to the charge,' resumed The Lifter, 'Roland gave me a
coin and with it a slip of paper on which were written the names of
certain books that he wanted me to buy for him in Muddy York. As I
passed him he whispered me not to let anybody know; because I suppose
he was afeered that you might object. I put my fingers upon my lips;
because I thought 'twas no harm to bring the books. That's all.'
The moralist tells us that 'no lie can be lawful or innocent.' Now I
take it that some of the old numbskulls who wrote such things in the
church catechisms and books of that ilk ought to be drowned in the
bottom of a well.
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