foundation of the world. Of this the reader must judge from the
sequel; for we shall hear much of him anon.

The second man was Tom Hankin, shoemaker. A man of strong contrasts was
Tom; an octogenarian when I first knew him, and an atheist, as he
proudly boasted, "all his life." My last interview with him took place a
few days before his death, when he knew that he was hovering on the
brink of the grave; and it was then that Hankin offered me his complete
argument for the non-existence of Deity and the mortality of the soul.
Never did dying saint dilate on the raptures of Paradise with greater
fervour than that displayed by the old man as he developed his theme. I
will not say that Hankin was happy; but he was fierce and unconquered,
and totally unafraid. I think also that he was proud--proud, that is, of
his ability to hurl defiance into the very teeth of Death. He said that
he had always hoped he would be able to die thus; that he had sometimes
feared lest in his last illness there should be some weakening towards
the end: perhaps his mind would become overclouded, and he would lose
grip of his arguments; perhaps he would think that death was _something_
instead of being _nothing_; perhaps he would be troubled by the thought
of impending annihilation. But no, it was all as clear as before,
clearer if anything. All that troubled him was "that folks was so blind;
that Snarley Bob, in particular, was as obstinate as ever--a man, sir,
as ought to ha' known better; never would listen to no arguments; always
shut him up when he tried to reason, and sometimes swore at him; and him
with the best head in the whole county, but crammed full of rubbish that
was no use to himself nor nobody else, and that nobody could make head
nor tail of--no, not even Mrs. Abel, as was always backing him up; and
to think of him breedin' sheep all his life; why, that man, sir, if only
he'd learned a bit o' commonsense reasonin', might ha' done wonders,
instead o' wastin' himself wi' a lot o' tomfoolery about stars and
spirits, and what all." Thus he continued to pour forth till a fit of
coughing interrupted the torrent.

Hankin was the son of a Chartist, from whom he inherited a small but
sufficient collection of books. Tom Paine was there, of course, bearing
on every page of him the marks of two generations of Hankin thumbs. He
also possessed the works of John Stuart Mill, not excepting the _Logic_,
which he had mastered, even as to the abstrus