."

"I believe I would, John. We haven't long to stay here, and nothing
sweetens our sojourn like forgiveness. I don't mean it in sacrilege, but
Christ was greatest and closest to His Father when he forgave the
thief."

"That's true," said the Major. "You may not be able to think very
coherently, Gid, but sometimes you stroll into a discussion and bark the
shins of thought."

"Easy, John. I am a thinker. My mind is full of pictures when your fancy
is checkered with red and blue lines. So you are willing to forgive
her?" he added after a pause.

"Yes, more than willing. But she isn't ready to be forgiven. She has
some very queer notions, and I'll be hanged if I know where she picked
them up. At times she's most unnatural."

"Don't say that, John. I gad, sir, what right has one person to say that
another person is unnatural? Who of us is appointed to set up the
standard and gauge of naturalness? Who is wholly consistent? You may
say the average man. Ah, but if everyone conformed to the average there
would be nothing great in the world. There is no greater bore than the
well-balanced man. He wears us out with his evenness. You know what he's
going to say before he says it."

"I grant you all that; but the well-balanced man made it possible for
the genius to make the world great. Genius is the bloom that bursts out
at the top of commonplace humanity."

"Yes, that's all very well; but just at present I'd like to have a
little liquor. Be easy, though, and don't let the madam know what you're
after."

"There's not a drop in the house, Gid, but there's a demijohn in the
office. Let's step out there."

"No, I believe not, John," the old fellow replied, with a shudder.
"Can't you bring it out?"

"She'll see me if I do. You must go with me. Whisky that's not worth
going after is not worth drinking."

"You are right, John; but you have stated one of those truths that are
never intended to be used except in the absence of something else that
might have been said. Plain truths are tiresome, John. They never lend
grace to a conversation."

"What do you know about the graces of conversation? You are better
fitted to talk of the disgraces of conduct."

"Slow, John. But I know that a truth to be interesting must be whimsical
or so blunt that it jolts."

"But didn't it jolt you when I said that you must go into the office
after the liquor?"

"Yes; but cruelly, John. You must never jolt cruelly. I gad, I'm getting
old