ion almost seriously; a little bit later, utterly
seriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully, devotedly;
finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly. After that, I was welded
to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down
with compassion not unmixed with scorn, upon everybody else's faith that
didn't tally with mine. That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in
that ancient day, remains my faith to-day, and in it I find comfort,
solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see how curiously theological
it is. The "rice Christian" of the Orient goes through the very same
steps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after _him_; he goes
for rice, and remains to worship.

Ealer did a lot of our "reasoning"--not to say substantially all of it.
The slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it by that large name.
We others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by any
name at all. They show for themselves, what they are, and we can with
tranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them with a title of its
own choosing.

Now and then when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my
induction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself: always
getting eight feet, eight-and-a-half, often nine, sometimes even
quarter-less-twain--as _I_ believed; but always "no bottom," as _he_
said.

I got the best of him only once. I prepared myself. I wrote out a
passage from Shakespeare--it may have been the very one I quoted a while
ago, I don't remember--and riddled it with his wild steamboatful
interlardings. When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer
day, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as
Hell's Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the
Pennsylvania triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the
_A. T. Lacey_ had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling
good, I showed it to him. It amused him. I asked him to fire it off:
read it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only he could read dramatic
poetry. The compliment touched him where he lived. He did read it; read
it with surpassing fire and spirit; read it as it will never be read
again; for _he_ knew how to put the right music into those thunderous
interlardings and make them seem a part of the text, make them sound as
if they were bursting from Shakespeare's own soul, each one of them a
golden inspiration and not