s little finger than in both their
bodies.'

'Hoots, man! hauld your silly tongue,' cried his father.

'Have you read "In Memoriam"?' cried Paul.

'No,' returned Armstrong curtly, 'I have not.'

'Then,' Paul stormed, 'what's your opinion good for?'

The old man's eyes flashed, and he made a motion as if to rise. He
controlled himself, however, and reached out a hand to the hob for the
clay he had relinquished a minute or two before.

'The question's fair,' he said; 'the question's fair--pairfectly fair,
Paul. I misliked the manner of it, but the question's fair.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Paul.

He could have knelt to him.

'They'll be having Tennyson at the Institute Library?' the old man
asked. 'I'll walk over for him.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Paul, 'but Tennyson----'

'Ay, ay!' said Armstrong, 'age fossilizes. It's like enough the man has
a word to say. I'll look at him.'

He took his rusty old silk hat from its hook beside the eight-day clock,
and went out quietly.

For the first minute in his life Paul truly loved him.

'It would ha'served me right,' he mourned, 'if he'd ha' knocked me down.
It's a lot better as it is, though; but it's hard to bear.'

That afternoon, and for many a morning and afternoon for months, old
Armstrong shuffled swiftly along the weedy garden, and took his seat on
the upturned box beside the stove, and there studied his Tennyson and
smoked his pipe. These were halcyon days for Paul, for the old man was
not long obdurate, and began to halve the delight of his own reading.

'Ay, ay!' he said, by way of making his first admission, '"in My
Father's house are many mansions." This chap has the key to the
organ-loft' Then, a little later: 'It's clean thinking, and a bonny
music' Later still, with a long, slow sigh on the word: 'Eh!' and then,
unconsciously: 'Deep waters, lad, deep waters.'

He read slowly, for the dialect was new, and he was bent on mastering
it. His occasional difficulties seemed strange to the boy, but then,
Paul had been suckled at this fountain, and could make no allowances for
the prepossessions of age, and the distaste of an old palate for a new
flavour. An occasional question startled him, the answer was so obvious
and simple.

'"Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God,"'

Armstrong read out 'D'ye find the meaning of that, Paul, lad,' he asked.

'Village church,' said Paul 'Holy Communion.'

'T