The Judge took a turn. “We-ell, Doctor--” He seemed to stick here. Mr. Ogden handsomely assisted him. “You’ve said the word yourself, Doctor. It’s the competition, don’t you see? The trial of strength by no matter what test.” “Yes,” said Miss Wood, unexpectedly. “And it wasn’t that George Washington couldn’t tell a lie. He just wouldn’t. I’m sure if he’d undertaken to he’d have told a much better one than Cornwall’s.” “Ha-ha, madam! You draw an ingenious subtlety from your books.” “It’s all plain to me,” Ogden pursued. “The men were morose. This foreman was in the minority. He cajoled them into a bout of tall stories, and told the tallest himself. And when they found they had swallowed it whole--well, it would certainly take the starch out of me,” he concluded. “I couldn’t be a serious mutineer after that.” Dr. MacBride now sounded his strongest bass. “Pardon me. I cannot accept such a view, sir. There is a levity abroad in our land which I must deplore. No matter how leniently you may try to put it, in the end we have the spectacle of a struggle between men where lying decides the survival of the fittest. Better, far better, if it was to come, that they had shot honest bullets. There are worse evils than war.” The Doctor’s eye glared righteously about him. None of us, I think, trembled; or, if we did, it was with emotions other than fear. Mrs. Henry at once introduced the subject of trout-fishing, and thus happily removed us from the edge of whatever sort of precipice we seemed to have approached; for Dr. MacBride had brought his rod. He dilated upon this sport with fervor, and we assured him that the streams upon the west slope of the Bow Leg Mountains would afford him plenty of it. Thus we ended our meal in carefully preserved amity. XX. THE JUDGE IGNORES PARTICULARS “Do you often have these visitations?” Ogden inquired of Judge Henry. Our host was giving us whiskey in his office, and Dr. MacBride, while we smoked apart from the ladies, had repaired to his quarters in the foreman’s house previous to the service which he was shortly to hold. The Judge laughed. “They come now and then through the year. I like the bishop to come. And the men always like it. But I fear our friend will scarcely please them so well.” “You don’t mean they’ll--” “Oh, no. They’ll keep quiet. The fact is, they have a good deal better manners than he has, if he only knew it. They’ll be able to bear him. But as for any good he’ll do--” “I doubt if he knows a word of science,” said I, musing about the Doctor. “Science! He doesn’t know what Christianity is yet. I’ve entertained many guests, but none--The whole secret,” broke off Judge Henry, “lies in the way you treat people. As soon as you treat men as your brothers, they are ready to acknowledge you--if you deserve it--as their superior. That’s the whole bottom of Christianity, and that’s what our missionary will never know.”