't fair in me. An' I thought to myself, If
you're goin' to do a mean thing like this to get a hitch in life, how
you goin' to get fit to be President? If you see somebody doin' a
sneaky or dishonest thing, you can't have the face to pull him up an'
send him to prison,"--as may be seen, Jim's ideas of the Presidential
authority were that it was unlimited and autocratic,--"when you know
you got there yourself on the sly; an' I wouldn't feel fit for it. So
there wasn't no comfort in it one way or another; an' I made up my mind
I'd tell you, an' you can tell Mr. Rutherford; an' anyhow I'll come out
fair an' even chances with Theodore. Mr. Rutherford will maybe think
this is worse than fightin' an' blowin' out?" interrogatively and
wistfully.

Milly had let him go on without interruption when she had once succeeded
in starting him, and had asked no questions; now she said,--

"I think, Jim, that Mr. Rutherford will be pleased that you had so far
the mastery over yourself that you would not take what you considered
an unfair advantage over Theodore. I am glad, truly glad that you have
succeeded in learning to control your temper; but still more glad that
your sense of honor and right led you to tell of this. But how did you
learn of Mr. Rutherford's plan?"

Jim related how Bill, overhearing the conversation, or at least a part
of it, on the evening on which the matter had been discussed by the
family, had been the medium of communication, and how they had both
resolutely guarded their knowledge of it until now; when Jim had told
his comrade that he _must_ make confession, and put himself, as he
thought, on equal ground with his antagonist and unconscious rival.

"I didn't do it for no good feelin' to Theodore, Miss Milly," he added,
"for I b'lieve I just _hate_ Theodore. I didn't feel none too good to
him ever since first I seen him, an' the more I saw him the worse I got
to like him; but all the same, I'd got to be fair to him when it
come--came--to his chance bein' lost. If I couldn't take care of myself
that way, I ain't goin' to be fit to take care of these United States.
Miss Milly, you'll tell Mr. Rutherford? I could tell you, but I
couldn't tell him."

Milly answered him that she would be the bearer of his confession; and
left him, much relieved herself to find that he had been guilty of
nothing more serious, and thankful from her very heart to see that her
teachings and his newly-awakened sense of justice would n