“Well, sir, I jest set there thinkin’ how this boy Bernal Linford was brought up for a preacher, and ‘Jest look at him now!’ I says to myself—­and I guess it was mebbe an hour later I seen ’em comin’ out of the swingin’ blinds in the door of this place, and a laffin’ fit to kill themselves.  ‘High Mighty! they done it!’ I says, watchin’ ’em laff and slap each other on the back till Hoover had to stop in the middle of the street to cough.  Well, they come into the Commercial office where I am and I says, ‘Well, boys, how much did you fellers win?’ and Hoover says, ‘Not a cent!  We lost our roll,’ he says.  ’It’s the blamedest funniest thing I ever heard of,’ he says, just like that, laffin’ again fit to choke.

“‘I don’t see anythin’ to laff at,’ I says.  ‘How you goin’ to live?’

“‘How’s he goin’ to die?’ says Bernal, ‘without a cent to do it on?’

“‘That’s the funny part of it,’ says Hoover.  ’Linford thought of it first.  How can I die now?  It wouldn’t be square,’ he says—­’me without a cent!’

“Then they both began to laugh—­but me, I couldn’t see nothin’ funny about it.

“Wal, I left early next mornin’, not wantin’ to have to refuse ’em a loan.”

CHAPTER II

HOW A BROTHER WAS DIFFERENT

In contrast with this regrettable performance of Bernal’s, which, alas! bore internal evidence of being a type of many, was the flawless career of Allan, the dutiful and earnest.  Not only did he complete his course at the General Theological Seminary with great honour, but he was ordained into the Episcopal ministry under circumstances entirely auspicious.  Aunt Bell confided to Nancy that his superior presence quite dwarfed the bishop who ordained him.

His ordination sermon, moreover, which his grandfather had been persuaded into journeying to hear, was held by many to be a triumph of pulpit oratory no less than an able yet not unpoetic handling of his text, which was from John—­“The Truth shall make you free.”

Truth, he declared, was the crowning glory in the diadem of man’s attributes, and a subject fraught with vital interest to every thinking man.  The essential nature of man being gregarious, how important that the leader of men should hold Truth to be like a diamond, made only the brighter by friction.  The world is and ever has been illiberal.  Witness the lonely lamp of Erasmus, the cell of Galileo, the dying bed of Pascal, the scaffold of Sidney—­all fighters for truth against the masses who cannot think for themselves.

Truth was, indeed, a potent factor in civilisation.  If only all truth-lovers could feel bound together by the sacred ties of fraternal good-will, independent yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence, succeeding ages could but add a new lustre to their present resplendent glory.