I find I have so many things in common with the old Master of Arts, that I do not always know whether a thought was originally his or mine.  That is what always happens where two persons of a similar cast of mind talk much together.  And both of them often gain by the interchange.  Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.  That which was a weed in one intelligence becomes a flower in the other.  A flower, on the other hand, may dwindle down to a mere weed by the same change.  Healthy growths may become poisonous by falling upon the wrong mental soil, and what seemed a night-shade in one mind unfold as a morning-glory in the other.

—­I thank God,—­the Master said,—­that a great many people believe a great deal more than I do.  I think, when it comes to serious matters, I like those who believe more than I do better than those who believe less.

—­Why,—­said I,—­you have got hold of one of my own working axioms.  I should like to hear you develop it.

The Member of the Haouse said he should be glad to listen to the debate.  The gentleman had the floor.  The Scarabee rose from his chair and departed;—­I thought his joints creaked as he straightened himself.

The Young Girl made a slight movement; it was a purely accidental coincidence, no doubt, but I saw That Boy put his hand in his pocket and pull out his popgun, and begin loading it.  It cannot be that our Scheherezade, who looks so quiet and proper at the table, can make use of That Boy and his catapult to control the course of conversation and change it to suit herself!  She certainly looks innocent enough; but what does a blush prove, and what does its absence prove, on one of these innocent faces?  There is nothing in all this world that can lie and cheat like the face and the tongue of a young girl.  Just give her a little touch of hysteria,—­I don’t mean enough of it to make her friends call the doctor in, but a slight hint of it in the nervous system,—­and “Machiavel the waiting-maid” might take lessons of her.  But I cannot think our Scheherezade is one of that kind, and I am ashamed of myself for noting such a trifling coincidence as that which excited my suspicion.

—­I say,—­the Master continued,—­that I had rather be in the company of those who believe more than I do, in spiritual matters at least, than of those who doubt what I accept as a part of my belief.

—­To tell the truth,—­said I,—­I find that difficulty sometimes in talking with you.  You have not quite so many hesitations as I have in following out your logical conclusions.  I suppose you would bring some things out into daylight questioning that I had rather leave in that twilight of half-belief peopled with shadows—­if they are only shadows—­more sacred to me than many realities.

There is nothing I do not question,—­said the Master;—­I not only begin with the precept of Descartes, but I hold all my opinions involving any chain of reasoning always open to revision.