"You need not," replied the master; "if you are willing, I will call him; he is waiting for me below at the corner."
They had acted as children do, when one says to the other on leaving school:
"Wait a minute for me, I'll ask mamma if you can come and dine with us."
Brucker, who after all knew how to be agreeable when he chose, took his place at the table, and all went well.
This proves yet once again the extent to which Delsarte possessed that charming simplicity so well suited to all distinction.
In the dissertations upon religious subjects incessantly renewed about Delsarte, it was sometimes declared that "great sinners were surer of salvation than the most perfect unbelievers in the world."
A young man, who doubtless felt himself to be in the first category, once said to the master:
"My friend, the good God has been too kind to me! I disobey him, I offend against his laws.... I repent, and he accepts my prayer! I relapse into sin--and he forgives me! Decidedly, the good God is a very poltroon!"
This seems to exceed the unrestrained ease and confidence usual toward an earthly father; but we must not forget that the inflection modifies the meaning of a phrase, and that poltroon may mean adorable.
This penitent, now famous, carried his provocation of the inexhaustible goodness very far. At one time in his life he tried to blow out his brains! By a mere chance--he probably said, by a miracle,--the wound was not mortal; but he always retained the accusing scar. I never knew whether this unpleasant adventure preceded or followed Mr. L.'s conversion, or whether it was coincident with one of the relapses of which that repentant sinner accused himself.