holy orders had no right to give his whole life and strength to another
profession. He had asked the advice of a wise and good man on this
point, however, and the theologian had thought that he should continue
to live as he was living. Had he a cure? No, he had none. Had he ever
evaded a priest's work? That is, had work been offered to him where a
priest was needed, and where he could have done active good, and had he
refused because it was distasteful to him? No, never. Was he receiving
any stipend for performing a priest's duties, with the tacit
understanding that he was at liberty to pay an impecunious substitute a
part of the money for taking his place, so that he himself profited by
the transaction? No, certainly not. Don Nicola had a sufficient income
of his own to live on. Had he ever made a solemn promise to devote his
life to missionary labours among the heathen? No.

"In that case, my dear friend," concluded the theologian, "you are
tormenting yourself with perfectly useless scruples. You are making a
mountain of your molehill, and when you have made your mountain you will
not be satisfied until you have made another beside it. In the course of
time you will, in fact, oppress your innocent conscience with a whole
range of mountains; you will be immobilised under the weight, and then
you will become hateful to yourself, useless to others, and an object of
pity to wise men. Stick to your archaeology."

"Is pure study a good in itself?" asked Don Nicola.

"What is good?" retorted the theologian viciously. "I wish you would
define it!"

Don Nicola was silent, for though he could think of a number of synonyms
for the conception, he remembered no definition corresponding to any of
them. He waited.

"Good and goodness are not the same thing," observed the theologian;
"you might as well say that study and knowledge are the same thing."

"But study should lead to knowledge."

"And goodness should lead to good; and, compared with ignorance,
knowledge is a form of good. Therefore study is a form of goodness.
Consequently, as you have a turn for erudition, the best thing you can
do is to go on with your studies."

"I see," said Don Nicola.

"I wish I did," sighed the theologian, when the priest was gone. "How
very pleasant it must be, to be an archaeologist!"

After that, whenever Don Nicola was troubled with uneasiness about his
profession, he soothed himself with his friend's little syllogism, which
was as