rvious, suspicious, hostile. I looked at the boy's
laughing face, and wondered, and wondered.

"And how," said I, curious, "did you happen to pitch on the Bible?"

"Why, I got to studying about this chap. I wanted something that'd
_reach him_. I was puzzled. And then I remembered hearing my father
say that the Bible is the most interesting book in the world because
it's the most personal. There's something in it for everybody. So I
thought there'd be something in it for John Flint, and I tried it on
him, without telling him what I was giving him. I just plunged right
in, head over heels. Lord, Padre, it _is_ a wonderful old book, isn't
it? Why, I got so lost in it myself that I forgot all about John
Flint, until I happened to glance up and see that he was up to the
eyes in it, just like I was! He likes the fights and he gloats over
the spoils. He's asking for more. I think of turning Paul loose on
him."

"Well, if after the manner of men Paul fought with wild beasts at
Ephesus," I said hopefully. "I dare say he'll be able to hold his own
even with John Flint."

"I like Paul best of all, myself," said Laurence. "You see, Padre, my
father and I have needed a dose of Paul more than once--to stiffen our
backbones. So I'm going to turn the fighting old saint loose on John
Flint. 'By, Padre;--I'll look in to-morrow--I left poor old Elijah up
in a cave with no water, and the ravens overdue!"

He went down our garden path whistling, his cap on the back of his
head, and I looked after him with the warm and comforting sense that
the world is just that much better for such as he.

The boy was now, in his last high school year, planning to study
law--all the Maynes took to law as a duck to water. Brave,
simple-hearted, direct, clear-thinking, scrupulously honorable,--this
was one of the diamonds used to cut the rough hard surface of Slippy
McGee.

CHAPTER III

NEIGHBORS

On a morning in late March, with a sweet and fresh wind blowing, a
clear sun shining, and a sky so full of soft white woolly clouds that
you might fancy the sky-people had turned their fleecy flock out to
graze in the deep blue pastures, Laurence Mayne and I brought John
Flint downstairs and rolled him out into the glad, green garden, in
the comfortable wheel-chair that the mill-people had given us for a
Christmas present; my mother and Clelie followed, and our little dog
Pitache marched ahead, putting on ridiculous airs of responsibility;
he b