"If it was trusting you with a funeral or a christening," Filmer felt his way gingerly, "I wouldn't care a durn. You can't hurt the dead and the kid might outgrow it; but when it comes to tying folks together tight, it's a blamed lot like trusting something brittle in a baby's hand. It mustn't be broke, you see, or there'll be h--I mean trouble, to pay."
"See here!" Drew sat up straight, "I'm not much younger than you, if the truth were known. So let us cut extreme youth out of the question."
"Maybe you are about my age, kid," Jock gazed indulgently upon him, "and don't let your necktie choke you; but you're pretty raw material, and I'm seasoned. That's the difference. It ain't anything against you. It's the way you've been handled. Burying is looked upon by young _and_ old, solemn-like; but I didn't know how you looked upon--marrying."
"It's the solemnest thing in life." Drew spoke clearly and impressively. "I think death is a light matter in comparison. I've always thought that--since, well--for several years."
"Now you're talking!" Jock leaned over and gave Drew a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Now you're getting on the right course, and I want to give you this tip. Lay it on thick with Jude. Tell him he'll be everlasting blasted in kingdom-come if he don't act clean and hold on. Specially slap it on about holding on. Jude's intentions are good enough. He's powerful promising at the start, but he's the d----, the gol-durndest quitter anywhere around.
"Every new boss bets on Jude when the season begins, but every man of them would like to kick him out of camp before the spring sets in. All the hell-fire threats that that religion factory of yours drilled in you, you plank on Jude to-morrow, when you make him and Joyce man and wife. How fervent was that factory of yours? There is a difference in temperatures among them, I've heard."
"Oh! mine was mild," Drew was again helplessly convulsed, "so mild that I'm afraid you'd call it frigid. But that doesn't matter. Future damnation is a poor threat when every man among us knows that a present hell is a much worse affair. It's the awakening of a soul to _that_ fact, that is going to save the world of men and women."
A full moon was sailing high in the heavens now, and Drew's animated face showed clear in the pale gleam. Jock hitched his chair nearer.