all get their living by
writing in a certain way, and the more they write in that way, the more
they are likely to get on. You should not call them dishonest for this
any more than a judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his
living by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously believe;
but you should hear the barrister on the other side before you decide
upon the case."

This was another facer. Ernest could only stammer that he had
endeavoured to examine these questions as carefully as he could.

"You think you have," said Mr Shaw; "you Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen
think you have examined everything. I have examined very little myself
except the bottoms of old kettles and saucepans, but if you will answer
me a few questions, I will tell you whether or no you have examined much
more than I have."

Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned.

"Then," said the tinker, "give me the story of the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ as told in St John's gospel."

I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in a deplorable
manner; he even made the angel come down and roll away the stone and sit
upon it. He was covered with confusion when the tinker first told him
without the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and then verified his
criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself.

"Now," said Mr Shaw good naturedly, "I am an old man and you are a young
one, so perhaps you'll not mind my giving you a piece of advice. I like
you, for I believe you mean well, but you've been real bad brought up,
and I don't think you have ever had so much as a chance yet. You know
nothing of our side of the question, and I have just shown you that you
do not know much more of your own, but I think you will make a kind of
Carlyle sort of a man some day. Now go upstairs and read the accounts of
the Resurrection correctly without mixing them up, and have a clear idea
of what it is that each writer tells us, then if you feel inclined to pay
me another visit I shall be glad to see you, for I shall know you have
made a good beginning and mean business. Till then, Sir, I must wish you
a very good morning."

Ernest retreated abashed. An hour sufficed him to perform the task
enjoined upon him by Mr Shaw; and at the end of that hour the "No, no,
no," which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from Towneley, came
ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible itself, and
in res