“Right, sir,” answered Joe with his smile, and taking the tea-tray from off his master, he set it where it must infallibly be knocked over, and went out.

“Can it be possible,” thought Mr. Lavender, when he was alone, “that I am serving God and Mammon?  And which is God and which is Mammon?” he added, letting his thoughts play over the countless speeches and leading articles which had formed his spiritual diet since the war began.  “Or, indeed, are they not both God or both Mammon?  If what Joe says is true, and nothing is recorded save what seems good to this Unseen Power, have I not been listening to ghosts and shadows; and am I, indeed, myself anything but the unsubstantial image of a public man?  For it is true that I have no knowledge of anything save what is recorded in the papers.”  And perceiving that the very basis of his faith was endangered, he threw off the bedclothes, and began to pace the room.  “Are we, then, all,” he thought, “being bounded like india-rubber balls by an unseen hand; and is there no one of us strong enough to bounce into the eye of our bounder and overthrow him?  My God, I am unhappy; for it is a terrible thing not to know which my God is, and whether I am a public man or an india-rubber ball.”  And the more he thought the more dreadful it seemed to him, now that he perceived that all those journals, pamphlets, and reports with which his study walls were lined might not be the truth, but merely authorized versions of it.

“This,” he said aloud, “is a nightmare from which I must awaken or lose all my power of action and my ability to help my country in its peril.”

And sudden sweat broke out on his brow, for he perceived that he had now no means of telling even whether there was a peril, so strangely had Joe’s words affected his powers of credulity.

“But surely,” he thought, steadying himself by gripping his washstand, “there was, at least, a peril once.  And yet, how do I know even that, for I have only been told so; and the tellers themselves were only told so by this Unseen Power; and suppose it has made a mistake or has some private ends to serve!  Oh! it is terrible, and there is no end to it.”  And he shook the crockery in the spasms which followed the first awakenings of these religious doubts.  “Where, then, am I to go,” he cried, “for knowledge of the truth?  For even books would seem dependent on the good opinion of this Unseen Power, and would not reach my eyes unless they were well spoken of by it.”

And the more he thought the more it seemed to him that nothing could help him but to look into the eyes of this Unseen Power, so that he might see for himself whether it was the Angel of Truth or some Demon jumping on the earth.  No sooner had this conviction entered his brain than he perceived how in carrying out such an enterprise he would not only be setting his own mind at rest, and re-establishing or abolishing his faith, but would be doing the greatest service which