“Such is the effect of character! And yet out of the fulness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Out of the heart proceed all those unpleasant things enumerated in Scripture; but if you bottle them up there, and keep your label fresh, it's all that's required of you, by your fellow-beings, at least. What an amusing thing morality would be if it were not--otherwise. Atherton, do you believe that such a man as Christ ever lived?” “I know you do, Halleck,” said Atherton. “Well, that depends upon what you call _me_. It what I was--if my well Sunday-schooled youth--is I, I do. But if I, poising dubiously on the momentary present, between the past and future, am I, I'm afraid I don't. And yet it seems to me that I have a fairish sort of faith. I know that, if Christ never lived on earth, some One lived who imagined him, and that One must have been a God. The historical fact oughtn't to matter. Christ being imagined, can't you see what a comfort, what a rapture, it must have been to all these poor souls to come into such a presence and be looked through and through? The relief, the rest, the complete exposure of Judgment Day--” “Every day is Judgment Day,” said Atherton. “Yes, I know your doctrine. But I mean the Last Day. We ought to have something in anticipation of it, here, in our social system. Character is a superstition, a wretched fetish. Once a year wouldn't be too often to seize upon sinners whose blameless life has placed them above suspicion, and turn them inside out before the community, so as to show people how the smoke of the Pit had been quietly blackening their interior. That would destroy character as a cult.” He laughed again. “Well, this isn't business,--though it isn't pleasure, either, exactly. What I came for was to ask you something. I've finished at the Law School, and I'm just ready to begin here in the office with you. Don't you think it would be a good time for me to give up the law? Wait a moment!” he said, arresting in Atherton an impulse to speak. “We will take the decent surprise, the friendly demur, the conscientious scruple, for granted. Now, honestly, do you believe I've got the making of a lawyer in me?” “I don't think you're very well, Halleck,” Atherton began. “Ah, _you're_ a lawyer! You won't give me a direct answer!” “I will if you wish,” retorted Atherton. “Well.” “Do you want to give it up?” “Yes.” “Then do it. No man ever prospered in it yet who wanted to leave it. And now, since it's come to this, I'll tell you what I really _have_ thought, all along. I've thought that, if your heart was really set on the law, you would overcome your natural disadvantages for it; but if the time ever came when you were tired of it, your chance was lost: you never would make a lawyer. The question is, whether that time has come.” “It has,” said Halleck.