Page:The Sunday Eight O'Clock (1916).pdf/58

 "You needn't ask," he said, "I lied to you; I have the paper in my pocket yet."

It was simply to save himself from censure that he had told the untruth. He had been careless and procrastinating; he intended to do the thing immediately on leaving my office; it never occurred to him, as it seldom occurs to the ordinary young liar, that any one would check up on him. I could with difficulty bring myself to believe him again.

"If you will reinstate me," a boy said to me last semester, "I shall not cut any more this year. Don't you believe me?" he continued, when he saw that I smiled.

"I should, perhaps," I answered, "if you had ever kept your word with me before."

A young fellow can lie, get away with it and brag about it for a few times, but ultimately people find him out. The unfulfilled promise, the broken engagement, the duty that was assumed and then never fulfilled all react on the individual. These things seem trifling at first, but such a man comes