he reserved them to add weight to his persuasion. Sometimes he would seize an opportunity in the games, when a boy on whom he had designs was a partner of his, to ask him to promise to go to Confession with him on the following Saturday. As Saturday usually seemed a long way off, the boy generally consented; but Dominic did not let him forget it, and when Saturday came he would take the boy off to church, as pleased with the success of his little ruse as a sportsman is in securing his prize. In this way it often happened that a boy, on whom a hundred sermons would be lost, would at once succumb to some novel method invented by Dominic's zeal for souls.
However, it occasionally happened, that on the appointed day, the boy who had promised to accompany him to Confession, would be missing. As soon as Dominic saw him again he would say: "Ah, you disappointed me; you didn't keep your promise." The boy would bring forward some excuse, but he was never able to convince Dominic, who easily explained to the boy that he had been caught in one of the devil's tricks for putting off Confession. He would then go on to show him how happy he would be afterwards if he made a good Confession, and get him to make another promise. It always happened that these boys would go to Dominic afterwards and tell him how
