has all at once surprised everybody by
telling the story of his hidden life far more pointedly and dramatically
than any playwright or novelist or poet could have told it for him. I
will not insult your intelligence, Beloved, by saying how he has told
it.

--We had been talking over the subjects touched upon in the Lady's
letter.

--I suppose one man in a dozen--said the Master--ought to be born a
skeptic. That was the proportion among the Apostles, at any rate.

--So there was one Judas among them,--I remarked.

--Well,--said the Master,--they 've been whitewashing Judas of late.
But never mind him. I did not say there was not one rogue on the
average among a dozen men. I don't see how that would interfere with my
proposition. If I say that among a dozen men you ought to find one that
weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds, and you tell me that there were
twelve men in your club, and one of 'em had red hair, I don't see that
you have materially damaged my statement.

--I thought it best to let the old Master have his easy victory, which
was more apparent than real, very evidently, and he went on.

--When the Lord sends out a batch of human beings, say a hundred--Did
you ever read my book, the new edition of it, I mean?

It is rather awkward to answer such a question in the negative, but I
said, with the best grace I could, "No, not the last edition."

--Well, I must give you a copy of it. My book and I are pretty much the
same thing. Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk without mentioning
it, and then I say to myself, "Oh, that won't do; everybody has read my
book and knows it by heart." And then the other I says,--you know there
are two of us, right and left, like a pair of shoes,--the other I says,
"You're a--something or other--fool. They have n't read your confounded
old book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it."
Another time, I say, thinking I will be very honest, "I have said
something about that in my book"; and then the other I says, "What a
Balaam's quadruped you are to tell 'em it's in your book; they don't
care whether it is or not, if it's anything worth saying; and if it
isn't worth saying, what are you braying for?" That is a rather sensible
fellow, that other chap we talk with, but an impudent whelp. I never got
such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I have from that No. 2 of
me, the one that answers the other's questions and makes the comments,
and does what in