ners, embezzlers, wife whippers, etc.

Wall, he wuz in his office when I tackled him. The hired girl asked me
if I come for visitin' purposes or business, and I told her firmly,
"business!"

So she walked me into a little office one side of the hall, where I
spoze the Deacon transacted the business that come up on his farm, and
then he wuz Justice of the Peace, and trustee of varius concerns (every
one of 'em good ones).

He is a tall, bony man, with eyes a sort of a steel gray, and thin lips
ruther wide, and settin' close together. And without lookin' like one,
or, that is, without havin' the same features at all, the Deacon did
make me think of a steel trap. I spoze it wuz because he wuz so sound,
and sort o' firm. A steel trap is real firm when it lays hold and tries
to be.

[Illustration: "THE DEACON DID MAKE ME THINK OF A STEEL TRAP."]

Wall, I begun the subject carefully, but straight to the pint, as my way
is, by tellin' him that Ralph S. Robinson wuz a-layin' at death's door,
and his life depended on his gettin' sleep, and we wuz afraid the bells
in the mornin' would roust him up, and I had come to see if he would
omit the ringin' of 'em in the mornin'.

"Not ring the bells!" sez he, in wild amaze. "Not ring the church bells
on the Sabbath day?"

His look wuz skairful in the extreme, but I sez--

"Yes, that is what I said, we beg of you as a Christian to not ring the
bells in the mornin'."

"A Christian! A Christian! Advise me as a _Christian_ to not ring the
Sabbath bells!"

I see the idee skairt him. He wuz fairly pale with surprise and borrow.
And I told him agin', puttin' in all the perticilers it needed to make
the story straight and good, how Ralph S. Robinson had labored for
the good of others, and how his strength had gin out, and he wuz now
a-layin' at the very pint of death, and how his girl and his sister wuz
a-breakin' their hearts over him, and how we had some hopes of savin'
his life if he could get some sleep, that the doctors said his life
depended on it, and agin I begged him to do what we asked.

But the Deacon had begin to get over bein' skairt, and he looked firm as
anybody ever could, as he sez: "The bells never hurt anybody, I know,
for here I have lived right by the side of 'em for 20 years. Do I look
broke down and weak?" sez he.

"No," sez I, honestly. "No more than a grannit monument, or a steel
trap."

"Wall," sez he, "what don't hurt me won't hurt nobody else."

"B