advent was a great boon to me, for as he lived in a
house I let him quite near by, whenever he had a spare evening he would
drop in to dinner, and from our absolutely opposite standpoints we
discussed all things human and divine. Thus I was enabled to sharpen
my wits upon the hard steel of his clear intellect which was yet, in a
sense, so limited.

I must add that I never converted him to my way of thinking and he
never converted me to his, any more than he converted Bastin, for
whom, queerly enough, he had a liking. They pounded away at each other,
Bickley frequently getting the best of it in the argument, and when at
last Bastin rose to go, he generally made the same remark. It was:

"It really is sad, my dear Bickley, to find a man of your intellect
so utterly wrongheaded and misguided. I have convicted you of error at
least half a dozen times, and not to confess it is mere pigheadedness.
Good night. I am sure that Sarah will be sitting up for me."

"Silly old idiot!" Bickley would say, shaking his fist after him. "The
only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw his head open and
pour it in."

Then we would both laugh.

Such were my two most intimate friends, although I admit it was rather
like the equator cultivating close relationships with the north and
south poles. Certainly Bastin was as far from Bickley as those points
of the earth are apart, while I. as it were, sat equally distant between
the two. However, we were all very happy together, since in certain
characters, there are few things that bind men more closely than
profound differences of opinion.

Now I must turn to my more personal affairs. After all, it is impossible
for a man to satisfy his soul, if he has anything of the sort about him
which in the remotest degree answers to that description, with the husks
of wealth, luxury and indolence, supplemented by occasional theological
and other arguments between his friends; Becoming profoundly convinced
of this truth, I searched round for something to do and, like Noah's
dove on the waste of waters, found nothing. Then I asked Bickley and
Bastin for their opinions as to my best future course. Bickley proved a
barren draw. He rubbed his nose and feebly suggested that I might go
in for "research work," which, of course, only represented his own
ambitions. I asked him indignantly how I could do such a thing without
any scientific qualifications whatever. He admitted the difficulty, but
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