MR. ANY-TIME THE SPANIARD. . 63

all. The chances are that they will be at last for-
gotten, overlooked, crowded out. _

“Any time” is no time; just as “ anybody’s work”
is nobody’s work, and never gets attended to, or if it
is done at all, isn’t half done.

And after we have preached through our little ser-
mon with its four heads, then we sum it all up, and
add that the best of all reasons for never saying a
thing can be done “ any time” is that, besides being
a shiftless and lazy phrase, it is a disgraceful one.
It is the badge of a thief; the name and badge of the

worst thief that there is in the world; a thief that.

never has been caught yet, and never will be; a thief
that is older than the Wandering Jew, and has been
robbing everybody ever since the world began; a
thief that scorns to steal money or goods which
money could buy; a thief that steals only one thing,
but that the most precious thing that was ever made.

It is the custom to have photographs taken of all
the notorious thiefs that are caught ; these photographs
are kept in books at the headquarters of the police,
in the great cities, and when any suspicious character
is arrested the police officers look in this book to
see if his face is among the photographs there. Many
a thief has been caught in this way when he supposed
that he was safe.

Now most of you have had a sort of photograph
of this dangerous and dreadful thief I have been
describing. But you will never guess till I tell you
where it is. It is in your writing-book, under the
letter P,

You had to write out the description of him so
many times that you all know it by heart.

“Procrastination is the thief of time.’ When you
wrote that sentence over and over, you did not think
very much about it, did you? When we are young it
always seems to us as if there were so much time in
the world, it couldn’t be a very great matter if a thief
did steal some of it. But I wish I could find any
words strong enough to make you believe that long
before you are old you will feel quite differently. You
will see that there isn’t going to be half time enough
to do what you want to do; not half time enough to
learn what you want to learn; to see what you
want to see. No, not if you live to be a hundred,
not half time enough; most of all, not half time
enough to love all the dear people you love. Long
before you are old, you will feel this; and then, if
you are wise, you will come to have so great a hatred
of this master thief that you will never use — or, if
you can help it, let anybody you know use, that
favorite by-word of his, “ any time.”

 

 

CHIEF OF HIS TRIBE.