I hadn't got onto the lamp chimney trick."
"Why, what's that?" spoke up one of the boys.
"Aren't you onto that?" said Billy. "You can take a lamp chimney, wrap
it up in a towel and put it at your feet and it will make your whole
bed as warm as toast.
"Well, I went back to Wymore the next morning and sold my man. I cut
the stuffing out of prices because I had been told that the firm he
bought from was the best going, and I remembered the advice that my
old friend had given me: 'It's better, Billy, to be cussed for selling
goods cheap than to be fired for not selling them at all.' Of course I
don't agree with this now, but I slashed that bill just the same.
"Next morning, when I reached Beatrice, the first thing I saw in the
old hotel (I still recall that dead, musty smell) was a church
directory hanging on the wall. In the center of the directory were
printed these words:
"'A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content
And plenty of health for the morrow;
But a Sabbath profaned, no matter what gained,
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.
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