Page:Teeftallow-1926.djvu/89

"They say he can out-argue anybody. He reads Ingersoll and Tom Paine."

"Don't he know he'll go to hell?"

"He don't believe in no hell."

"He don't!"

"No, it don't make no diff'runce to him how bad he gits; he don't believe he'll git punished fer it. He thinks when he dies he'll jest be dead; that's all."

Abner stared after this fantastic man in horror. As the banker suggested, Mr. Belshue seemed scarcely human at all, but a sort of moral monster, ghoulish, unimaginable. At last a corollary struck Abner, and he asked Zed in a quick voice, "Look here, if he don't believe in no future punishment, why don't he rob and steal and jest raise hell generally?"

"Search me," grunted Zed. "I've often wondered why he don't myse'f."

Such a course of action seemed indicated to the young men because they held the hill belief that all wickedness was inherently pleasant, and all virtuous and right things were by nature unpleasant.

It was this same belief which had caused the banker to come out and break up the baseball game. If the workmen got pleasure out of it, it was sinful. All pleasure was sinful. Out of pure conscience Mr. Northcutt had placed thousands of dollars of bank deposits in jeopardy to prevent in the labourers the sinfulness of enjoying a pleasant afternoon.