“Oh, no.”

“Yes.  I bow down to education—­whenever I meet it.  I needn’t apologize—­because I hadn’t many advantages.  I try to make up by application.  I read, and I’m always thinking—­and having mastered the rudiments of science, I can look with some comprehension at the whole scheme of nature.  With the result that, viewing my own affairs in the same spirit that I view the whole bag of tricks, I ask myself that same old question of Q.  I. Bono.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s Latin,” said Dale. “Q.  I. Bono.”

“Oh, yes—­exactly.”

“Where’s the good?  Whatever one has, it isn’t enough if this life is all we’ve got to look to and there’s nothing beyond it.”

Mr. Osborn had let the wheels run down.  He came and sat opposite to Dale, and spoke very quietly.

“There is everything beyond it.”

“And supposing that’s so, one’s difficulty begins bigger than before.  It’s the life-risk a million times larger all over again—­success or failure, punishment or peace.”

“That’s better than what happened to the match you threw into the fender—­extinction.”

“I want to believe.  Mr. Osborne, I wish to speak with honesty.  I feel the need to believe.  If you can make me believe, you’ll do me a great service.”

“The service will be done, but it won’t be I who does it.”

“I want to be saved.  I want the day when you can tell me I have gained everlasting salvation.”

“The day will come; but it will not be my voice that tells you.”

Mr. Osborn got up to fetch one of the six shabby volumes, and when he had returned to his chair he went on talking.

“What you should do is to take things quietly.  You are a fine specimen, Mr. Dale, muscularly; but your nerves aren’t quite so grand as your muscles.”  He said this just as doctors talk to patients, and as if Dale had been speaking of his bodily health.  “Don’t worry—­and don’t hurry.  And I’d like to read you a passage here, to set your thoughts on the right line....  Well, well, I fancied I’d put a paper-mark.  I shall only garble it if I try to quote from memory.  It was Doctor Clifford, speaking about Jesus at our last Autumn Assembly.  He says Jesus never put God forward as a severe judge, or hard taskmaster, but as His Father....  Ah, here we are.  May I read it?”

“Yes, I wish to hear it.”

“’God is Father; He is our Father.  To Him’—­speaking of Jesus—­’and to us God is Father, and that means that we are in a deep and real sense His children, and, being children, then brothers to each other; for if God must be interpreted in terms of fatherhood, then man will never be interpreted accurately until he is interpreted in the terms of brotherhood.’” Mr. Osborn closed the book and laid his hand on Dale’s knee.  “How does that strike you, Brother Dale?”

“It strikes me as beautifully worded—­Brother Osborn.”