t
was always given on like occasions, was extended again, and in a few
moments the two men were riding along, side by side, as friendly, to
all appearance, as if nothing had happened.

"Jenkins, how could you serve me such a scaly trick as you did?"
Gooding said, soon after his neighbour had taken a seat by his side.
"You know very well that you promised to pay my claim; and also
promised to give me fifty dollars of it to-day, if possible."

"I know I did. But it was out of my power to let you have any thing
to-day," replied Jenkins.

"But what was the use of your denying it, and making me out a liar
or a fool, in the presence of your clerk?"

"I had a very good reason for doing so. My clerk would have been a
witness to my acknowledgment of your whole claim against me, and
thus make me liable before I was ready to pay it. As my head is
fairly clear of the halter, you cannot blame me for wishing to keep
it so. A burnt child, you know, dreads the fire."

"But you know me well enough to know that I never would have pressed
the claim against you."

"Friend Gooding, I have seen enough of the world to satisfy me that
we don't know any one. I am very ready to say to you, that your
claim shall be satisfied to the full extent, whenever it is in my
power to do so; but a legal acknowledgment of the claim I am not
willing to make. You mustn't think hard of me for what I did to-day.
I could not, in justice to myself, have done any thing else."

Gooding professed to be fully satisfied with this explanation,
although he was not. He was very well assured that Jenkins was
perfectly able to pay him the three hundred dollars, if he chose to
do so, and that his refusal to let him have the fifty dollars,
conditionally promised, was a dishonest act.

More than a year passed, during which time Gooding made many
fruitless attempts to get something out of Jenkins, who was always
on the best terms with him, but put him off with fair promises, that
were never kept. These promises were never made in the presence of a
third person, and might, therefore, have just as well been made to
the wind, so far as their binding force was concerned. Things grew
worse and worse with Gooding, and he became poorer every day, while
the condition of Jenkins as steadily improved.

One rainy afternoon, Gooding drove up to the store of his old
friend, about half an hour earlier than he usually left for home.
Jenkins was standing in the door.

"As it is r