all. How many folks would eat your candy if they knew you handled it
over before you washed your hands?"

"Oho! I've picked up a preacher, have I? Now I want you to understand,
my bantam, that I do all the preaching as well as the practicing myself,
and this is about as quick a way as I know of to make you understand
it."

As the man spoke he grasped the boy by the coat collar with one hand and
with the other plied a thin rubber cane with no gentle force to every
portion of Toby's body that he could reach.

Every blow caused the poor boy the most intense pain; but he determined
that his tormentor should not have the satisfaction of forcing an outcry
from him, and he closed his lips so tightly that not a single sound
could escape from them.

This very silence enraged the man so much that he redoubled the force
and rapidity of his blows, and it is impossible to say what might have
been the consequences had not Ben come that way just then and changed
the aspect of affairs.

"Up to your old tricks of whipping the boys, are you, Job?" he said,
as he wrested the cane from the man's hand and held him off at arm's
length, to prevent him from doing Toby more mischief.

Mr. Lord struggled to release himself, and insisted that, since the boy
was in his employ, he should do with him just as he saw fit.

"Now look here, Mr. Lord," said Ben, as gravely as if he was delivering
some profound piece of wisdom, "I've never interfered with you before;
but now I'm going to stop your game of thrashing your boy every morning
before breakfast. You just tell this youngster what you want him to do,
and if he don't do it you can discharge him. If I hear of your flogging
him, I shall attend to your case at once. You hear me?"

Ben shook the now terrified candy vender much as if he had been a child,
and then released him, saying to Toby as he did so, "Now, my boy, you
attend to your business as you ought to, and I'll settle his accounts if
he tries the flogging game again."

"You see, I don't know what there is for me to do," sobbed Toby, for
the kindly interference of Ben had made him show more feeling than Mr.
Lord's blows had done.

"Tell him what he must do," said Ben, sternly.

"I want him to go to work and wash the tumblers, and fix up the things
in that green box, so we can commence to sell as soon as we get into
town," snarled Mr. Lord, as he motioned toward a large green chest that
had been taken out of one of the carts, and w