Caleb smiled.  “That ain’t just the way we think of Boston over here,” he remarked.

“No; and, of course, Bauer didn’t change his point of view.  We used to have it up hill and down.  I had Scripture—­mother and the Beershebans had taught me that—­and Bauer had immense reading, flinty Dutch common sense, and a huge lack of the reverence for the so-called sacred subjects which seems to be ingrained in every race but the Teutonic.  I fought hard, both for mother’s sake and because it was the first time I had ever met a man with his sword out on the other side.”

“Well?” said Caleb.

“He downed me, horse, foot and artillery; made me realize as I never had before what an absolute begging of the premises the entire Christian argument is.”

“But how?” persisted the iron-master.

“Held me up at the muzzle of the cold facts.  For example:  do you happen to know that the oldest Bible manuscripts in existence go back only to the fourth century, and are doubtless copies of copies of copies?”

The father had pushed back his chair and was trying to fold his napkin in the original creases.

“No; there’s a heap o’ things I don’t know, son, but I’m willin’ to learn.  One o’ these days, if we ever get out o’ this business tangle alive, we’ll sit down quiet together and you’ll do for me what this Dutchman has done for you.  For, in spite of what you say, I’ve been sittin’ on the fence all these years, and I reckon you’re the one to help me down.”

Tom smiled first at the thought of it and then grew suddenly sober.  It is one thing to be serenely critical for oneself, and quite another to set the pace for a disciple.  And when that disciple chances to be one’s father?

“I don’t know about that, pappy,” he said, rather dubiously.  “I’d like to have you meet some of the people on my side of the road first.  Maybe you wouldn’t like the company.”

But Caleb would not have it so.  “If they’re good enough for you, son, they’re good enough for me,” he said.  “Not but what there’s some mighty good folks trampin’ along on the other side, too.”

“Yes, and some mighty bad ones,” said Tom, thinking of the promoter vestryman of St. Michael’s and his Bible-class-teaching son.  “We are going right now to investigate the financiering methods of a pair of them.  Is Dyckman still on duty?  Or are the offices closed?”

“Dyckman’s there,” was the answer; and they left the breakfast-room together to go around the block and have themselves lifted to the fifth floor of the Coosa Building, where half a dozen gilt-lettered glass doors advertised the administrative headquarters of Chiawassee Consolidated.