Theodore had regained his composure, and was quietly sipping his coffee. "You may, sir, certainly," he said, playfully. "I believe nothing is easier than to ask questions. Whether I can answer them or not is, of course, another matter." Mr. Ryan laughed. "But you used to be, or that is--well, something leads me to think that you are one of the Bible temperance men. Are you not?" Theodore fixed a pair of full, earnest, unashamed eyes on the questioner's face before he said: "Yes, sir, I entirely agree with Habakkuk on that subject to-day as in the past." "Well then," said Mr. Ryan, dashing into the subject, "I'm in need of enlightenment. Isn't there a story in the Bible about a certain wedding, at which our Savior countenanced the use of wine not only by his presence, but by actually furnishing the wine itself by his own miraculous power?" "There _is_ such a story," said Theodore, continuing to quietly sip his coffee. "Well, how do you account for it?" "I suppose, sir, you know how great and good men account for it?" questioned Theodore. "Oh yes, I know the story by heart, about two kinds of wine--one intoxicating, the other _not_, and that this wine at the marriage feast was of the non-intoxicating sort; but that at best is only supposition, not argument. I have as good a right to suppose it _was_ intoxicating as you have to suppose it was not." "Have you?" said Theodore, with elevated eyebrows. "In that we should differ." "Then that is the very point upon which I need enlightenment," answered Mr. Ryan, with a good-humored laugh. "Won't you please proceed?" "I presume you grant, sir, that it is not superstition but _certainty_ that there _were_ two kinds of wine in those days," said Theodore. "Oh yes. I'll accept that as fact." "Well, then, as I am not a Greek nor Hebrew scholar, and I understand that you are, I will simply remind you of the very satisfactory and generally accepted statements of learned men concerning the two words used in those languages to express two distinct kinds of liquid, which words were not, I am told, used interchangeably. Then I should like to pass at once to simpler, and, for unlearned people like myself, more practical arguments. Do you lawyers allow your authors to interpret themselves, sir?" "Certainly."