Timotheus
informed them that he had already been out probing the well with a pike
pole, and had brought up the long defunct bodies of a cat and a hen,
with an old shoe and part of a cabbage, to say nothing of other things
as savoury. They decided to take no more meals cooked with such water in
that house, paid their bill to Timotheus, buckled on their knapsacks,
and, with staff in hand, sallied forth into the pure outside air of the
morning. Coristine ran over to the store in which the post office was
kept, and posted his two letters. There was no sign of Matt, the
landlord, of Mr. Rawdon, or of their assailants of the night before.
Muggins, however, followed them, and no entreaties, threats, or stones
availed to drive the faithful creature back to his master and the hotel
where he slept.

The pedestrians passed the black, sluggish creek, out of which the
wigglers had come, and struck into a country, flat but more interesting
than that they had left behind them. After they had gone a couple of
miles they came to a clear running stream, in which they had a splendid
wash, that tended to allay the irritation of the mosquito bites. Then
they brought forth the remains of their biscuits and cheese, and partook
of a clean meal, which Coristine called a good foundation for a smoke,
Muggins sitting upon his hind legs and catching fragments of captain's
biscuits and whole gingersnaps in his mouth, as if he had never done
anything else. It was very pleasant to sit by the brook on that bright
July morning, after the horrors of the Peskiwanchow tavern, to have
clean food and abundance of pure water. As the dominie revelled in it,
he expressed the opinion that Pindar was right when he said "ariston men
hudor," which, said the lawyer, means that water is the best of all the
elements, but how would Mr. Pindar have got along without earth to walk
on, air to breathe, and fire to cook his dinner?

"I'm no philosopher, Wilks, like you, but it seems to me that perfection
is found in no one thing. If it was, the interdependence of the universe
would be destroyed; harmony would be gone, and love, which is just the
highest harmony, be lost. That's just why I couldn't be a unitarian of
any kind. As Tennyson says, 'one good custom would corrupt the world.'"

"Pardon me, Corry, he does not say that, but makes Arthur say:--

God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

"Better and better