"Will it please your honor to ask my prosecutor to come a little
nearer, so that I can look at him and your honor at the same time?"

Mr. Carman was directed to come forward. James looked at him a few
moments, and turned to the judge.

"What I have to say to your honor is this" (he spoke calmly and
distinctly), "and it may, in a degree, excuse, though it cannot justify,
my crime. I went into that man's store an innocent boy. If he had been
an honest man, I would not stand before you to-day as a criminal!"

Mr. Carman appealed to the court for protection against that which he
called an outrageous attack upon his character; but he was ordered to be
silent. James went on in a firm voice:--

"Only a few weeks after I began work in this man's store, I examined a
bill, by his direction, and discovered an error of twenty dollars."

The face of Mr. Carman was crimson.

"You remember it, I see," said James, "and I shall have cause to
remember it as long as I live. I asked if I should correct the figures,
and you answered:--

"'No; let them correct their own mistakes. We don't examine bills for
other people's benefit.'

"It was my first lesson in dishonesty. I saw the bill settled, and Mr.
Carman took twenty dollars that was not his own. I felt shocked at
first. It seemed such a wrong thing. But soon after this, he called me a
simpleton for handing back a fifty-dollar bill to the teller of a bank,
which he had overpaid me on a check, and then"--

"May I ask the protection of the court?" said Mr. Carman.

"Is the story of the lad true?" asked the judge.

Mr. Carman looked confused. All felt certain that he was guilty of
leading the unhappy young man astray.

"Not long afterward," resumed the young man, "in receiving my wages, I
found that Mr. Carman had paid me fifty cents too much. I was about to
give it back to him, when I remembered his remark about letting people
correct their own mistakes, and I said to myself, 'let him discover and
correct his own errors.' Then I dishonestly kept the money.

"Again the same thing happened, and again I kept the money that did not
belong to me. This was the beginning of evil, and here I am. If he had
shown any mercy to me, I might have kept silent and made no defense."

The young man covered his face with his hands, and sat down overpowered
with his feelings. His mother who was near him, sobbed aloud, and
bending over, laid her hands on his head. "My poor boy! my poor boy!"