"You did not make much progress with them, I believe?"
"None whatever. We found out after a year or two that it was hopeless to make them understand the existence of a God; and after that we stayed on to see if we could bring them to some knowledge of agriculture, and save them from their inevitable extermination, as the New Zealanders have been saved."
"And to no purpose?"
"None. For instance, we taught them to plant our potatoes for us. They did it beautifully, but in the night they dug them up and ate them. And in due season we waited that our potatoes should grow, and they grew not. Then they came to Brother Hillyar, my coadjutor, an old man, now ruling ten cities for his Master, and promised for rewards of flour to tell him why the potatoes did not grow. And he, loving them, gave them what they desired. And they told him that they dug them up while we slept. And for two days I went about my business, laughing in secret places, for which he tried to rebuke me, but could not, laughing himself. The Lord kept him waiting long, for he was seventy-four; but, doubtless, his reward is the greater."
William said, "You brought home a collection of zoological specimens, I think. They are in the Museum."
"Yes. But what I could not bring over were my live pets. I and my wife had a menagerie of our own—a great number of beasts——"
Mr. Bidder looking up from his book, catching the last sentence only, said the number of the beast was 666; and, then turning round, held himself ready to strike into the conversation, thinking that the time was come when he should hide his light no longer.
"The natives are very low savages, are they not, Mr. Smith?" said William. "I have heard that they cannot count above ten."
"Not so far as that," said Mr. Smith. "The tribe we were most among used to express all large unknown quantities by 'eighty-four;'[4] it was as x and y to them. That seems curious at first, does it not?"
William said it did seem curious, their choosing that particular number. But Mr. Bidder, dying to mount his hobby-horse, and not caring how, said it was not at all curious. If you multiplied the twelve tribes of Israel into the seven cities of refuge, there you were at once.