"We must each work out our own damnation," said Ishmael, and then could have kicked himself for his own smartness that he heard go jarring through the night. He waited in a blush of panic for some reproof, such as "That was hardly worthy, was it?" But the Parson, ever nothing if not unexpected, did not administer it, though Ishmael could have sworn he felt his smile through the darkness. "Damnation, salvation, it's much the same thing," said Boase, cheerfully, "though naturally youth likes to use the former word. But the great thing is never to despise the means by which another man attains it. Patience, tolerance, tolerance, patience...." "Oh, I don't know," protested Ishmael. "I don't think much would get done in the world at that rate, would it?" "Perhaps not. And you have so much to do in it.... When d'you start?" "To-morrow morning with dawn, so I must be getting off. If you're awake round about then, Da Boase, think of me beginning to remake the world over at Cloom." And Ishmael set off through the night, his feet lagging with a blissful fatigue and his mind falling on an equally blissful numbness. As he went the Parson's phrase went with him, stirring his imagination, and when he climbed into the big bed beneath the drooping Christ it worked more articulately within him. "Secret bread ..." he thought; "that's what he called it.... I wonder if Phoebe's is sun--she wanted to pick the sun. And his is religion, of course, and mine--I know what mine is. It'll always be the same. I shan't change even if I grow old." He began to feel very drowsy and drifted into a vague wonder at the thought of growing old. "I wonder what it feels like. I suppose one takes no more interest in anything; it can't matter what one's secret bread is. But mine, of course, mine is Cloom...." And on that he fell asleep. CHAPTER III FIRST FURROW