almost nightly, for years, tom and arthur, and by degrees east occasionally, and sometimes one, sometimes another of their friends, read a chapter of the bible together, and talked it over afterwards. tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at the[114] sort of way in which arthur read the book and talked about the men and women whose lives are there told. the first night they happened to fall on the chapters about the famine in egypt, and arthur began talking about joseph as if he were a living statesman; just as he might have talked about lord grey and the reform bill; only that they were much more living realities to him. the book was to him, tom saw, the most vivid and delightful history of real people, who might do right or wrong, just like any one who was walking about rugby—the doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. but the atmosphere soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and forever to him the great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he had looked upon as something quite different from himself, became his friends and counsellors.

arthur, tom, and east were together one night, and read the story of naaman coming to elisha to be cured of his leprosy. when the chapter was finished, tom shut his bible with a slap.

“i can’t stand that fellow naaman,” said he, “after what he’d seen and felt, going back again and bowing himself down in the house of rimmon, because his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. i wonder elisha took the trouble to heal him. how he must have despised him.”

“yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on your[115] head,” struck in east, who always took the opposite side to tom: half from love of argument, half from conviction. “how do you know he didn’t think better of it? how do you know his master was a scoundrel? his letter don’t look like it, and the book don’t say so.”

“i don’t care,” rejoined tom; “why did naaman talk about bowing down, then, if he didn’t mean to do it? he wasn’t likely to get more in earnest when he got back to court, and away from the prophet.”

“well, but, tom,” said arthur, “look what elisha says to him, ‘go in peace.’ he wouldn’t have said that if naaman had been in the wrong.”

“i don’t see that that means more than saying, ‘you’re not the man i took you for.’”

“no, no, that won’t do at all,” said east; “read the words fairly, and take men as you find them. i like naaman, and think he was a very fine fellow.”

“i don’t,” said tom, positively.

“well, i think east is right,” said arthur; “i can’t see but what it’s right to do the best you can, though it mayn’t be the best absolutely. every man isn’t born to be a martyr.”

“of course, of course,” said east; “but he’s on one of his pet hobbies. how often have i told you, tom, that you must drive a nail where it’ll go?”

“and how often have i told you,” rejoined tom, “that it’ll always go where you want, if you only stick[116] to it and hit hard enough? i hate half-measures and compromises.”

“yes, he’s a whole-hog man, is tom. must have the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail,” laughed east. “sooner have no bread any day than half a loaf.”

“i don’t know,” said arthur, “it’s rather puzzling; but ain’t most right things got by proper compromises, i mean where the principle isn’t given up?”

“that’s not the point,” said tom; “i don’t object to a compromise, where you don’t give up your principle.”

“not you,” said east laughingly. “i know him of old, arthur, and you’ll find him out some day. there isn’t such a reasonable fellow in the world to hear him talk. he never wants anything but what’s right and fair; only when you come to settle what’s right and fair, it’s everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. give me the brown compromise when i’m on his side.”

“now, harry,” said tom, “no more chaff—i’m serious. look here—this is what makes my blood tingle;” and he turned over the pages of his bible and read: “shadrach, meshach, and abednego answered and said to the king, ‘o nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. if it be so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand,[117] o king. but if not, be it known unto thee, o king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.’” he read the last verse twice, emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual pleasure and were hard to part with.

they were silent a minute, and then arthur said, “yes, that’s a glorious story, but it don’t prove your point, tom, i think. there are times when there is only one way, and that the highest, and then the men are found to stand in the breach.”

“there’s always a highest way, and it’s always the right one,” said tom. “how many times has the doctor told us that in his sermons in the last year i should like to know!”

“well, you ain’t going to convince us—is he arthur? no brown compromise to-night,” said east, looking at his watch. “but it’s past eight, and we must go to first lesson.”

so they took down their books and fell to work; but arthur didn’t forget, and thought long and often over the conversation.