He was paid five shillings a week, and was told that if he behaved himself, by the time he was twenty or twenty-one he would be making thirty shillings a week. Jacob was very pleased with this prospect, and told his unhappy son that he would soon settle down to it, and he even began to upbraid him for not painting in the evenings. Mendel could not touch his brushes. He tried hard to think of himself as an ordinary working boy, and he endeavoured to pursue the pleasures of his kind. He went with Harry to boxing matches and joined him in the raffish pleasures of the streets, which, however, left him weary and disgusted. He had known something truer and finer, and he could not help a little despising Harry, who pursued girls as game, and directly they were kindled and moved towards him he lost interest in them, and, indeed, was rather horrified by them. Strange in contrast was Mendel's relation with Edward Tufnell, who was entirely innocent and could see nothing in his protégé but a touching sensitiveness to beauty. The urchin with his complete and unoffended knowledge of the life of the gutter was hidden from him. Edward found, and was rejoiced to find, that the boy was sensitive to intellectual beauty and to ideas. He gave him poetry to read--Keats and the odes of Milton--and was very happy to explain to him the outlines of Christianity and the difference that the coming of Christ had made to the world. He did not aim at making a convert, but only at feeding the boy's appetite for tenderness and kindness and all fair things. Mendel was striving most loyally to be resigned to his horrible fate, and the teachings of Christ seemed to fortify his endeavour. When, therefore, he asked if he might read the New Testament, Edward lent it to him without misgiving. The result was disastrous. Mendel pored over the book and it seemed to let light into his darkness. He read of the conversion of S. Paul and his own illumination was apparently no less complete. The notion of holding out the other cheek appealed to him, for he felt that the whole world was his enemy. It had insulted him with five shillings a week, and if he were meek it would presently add another five. . . . And then what a prospect it opened up of a world where people loved each other and treated each other kindly and lived without the rasping anger and suspicion and jealousy that filled his home.