m in ordinary matters one would not hesitate to trust.
There had even been a story started, which was widely believed, that he
had raised the dead; moreover, many of those who had been deluded into
believing themselves healed, looked forward confidently to his own
resurrection.

Mr. Gridley ventured the opinion that we should be thankful to the daily
press which now disseminates the news of such things promptly, instead
of allowing it to travel slowly by word of mouth, as it did in less
advanced times--a process in which a little truth becomes very shortly a
mighty untruth. Even between Denver and Omaha he had observed that the
wonder-tales of this person grew apace, thus proving the inaccuracy of
the human mind as a reporter of fact. Without the check of an
unemotional daily press Mr. Gridley suspected that the poor creature's
performances would have been magnified by credulous gossip until he
became the founder of a new religion--a thing especially to be dreaded
in a day when the people were crazed for any new thing--as Paul found
them in Athens.

Mr. Gridley mentioned further that the person had suffered from what the
alienists called "morbid delusions of grandeur"--believing, indeed, that
but One other in the universe was greater than himself; that he would
sit at the right hand of Power to judge all the world. His most puerile
pretension, however, was that he meant to live, even if the work
required a thousand years, until such time as he could save all persons
into heaven, so that hell need have no occupants.

But this distressing tale did not move old Allan Delcher to reconsider
his perverse decision, though there had been ample time for reparation.
Placidly he dropped off one day, a little while after he had cautioned
Clytie to keep the house ready for Bernal's coming; and to have always
on hand one of those fig layer-cakes of which he was so fond, since as
likely as not he would ask for this the first thing, just as he used to
do. It must seem homelike to him when he did come.

Having betrayed the trust reposed in him by an unsuspecting grandson, it
seemed fitting that he should fall asleep over that very psalm wherein
David describeth the corruption of the natural man.

CHAPTER III

HOW EDOM WAS FAVOURED OF GOD AND MAMMON

In the years gone, the village of Edom had matured, even as little boys
wax to manhood. Time was when all but two trains daily sped by it so
fast that from their windows its