e I
was nine I knew how to read and write and figure a little. After
that--you know--I just sat on the hills for years with the goats. I read
the Reverend Orme's books, of course."

"What were the books?"

"There weren't many," said Lewis. "There was the Bible, of course. There
was a little set of Shakspere in awfully fine print and a set of Walter
Scott."

Leighton nodded. "The Bible is essential but not educative until you
learn to depolarize it. Shakspere--you'll begin to read Shakspere in
about ten years. Walter Scott. Scott--well--Scott is just a bright ax
for the neck of time. What else did you read?"

"I read 'The City of God' but not very often."

For a second Leighton stared; then he burst into laughter. He checked
himself suddenly.

"Boy," he said, "don't misunderstand. I'm not laughing at the book; I'm
laughing at your reading St. Augustine even 'not very often!'"

"Why shouldn't you laugh?" asked Lewis, simply. "I laughed sometimes. I
remember I always laughed at the heading to the twenty-first book."

"Did you?" said Leighton, a look of wonder in his face. "What is it? I
don't quite recollect the headings that far."

"'Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell, and of the various
objections urged against it,'" quoted Lewis, smiling.

Leighton grinned his appreciation.

"There is a flavor about unconscious humor," he said, "that's like the
bouquet to a fine wine: only the initiated catch it. I'm afraid you were
an educated person even before you read St. Augustine. Did he put up a
good case for torment? You see, you've found me out. I've never read
him."

"His case was weak in spots," said Lewis. "His examples from nature, for
instance, proving that bodies may remain unconsumed and alive in fire."

"Yes?" said Leighton.

"He starts out, 'if, therefore the salamander lives in fire, as
naturalists have recorded----' I looked up salamander in the
dictionary."

Lewis's eyes were laughing, but Leighton's grew suddenly grave. "Poor
old chap!" he said. "He didn't know that time rots the sanest argument.
'Oh... that mine adversary had written a book,' cried one who knew."

Leighton sat thoughtful for a moment, then he threw up his head.

"Well," he said, "we'll give up trying to find out how you got educated.
Let's change the subject. Has it occurred to you that at any moment you
may be called upon to support yourself?"

"It did once," said Lewis, "when I started for Oeiras. Then I met y