Gilderman sat for a while listening to the intermittent talk between mother and daughter. The time was drawing very near when Mrs. Gilderman should be confined, and Gilderman was at times almost startled at the directness of the talk between the two. “I wonder if they would object,” he said, after a while, “if I went into the dining-room? I would like very much to hear this examination of Tom Kettle.”
“Why, no, Henry,” said Mrs. Caiaphas. “I am sure they wouldn’t object at all.”
Gilderman hesitated for a moment or two; then he got up and sauntered out of the room.
When he came into the dining-room, he found the company all seated around the table, and Tom Kettle standing before them. He was a rather short, thick-set man, with a heavy, sullen, if not lowering countenance. His eyes were small and set far apart, his cheek-bones wide, and his face short, giving him somewhat the look of a male cat. He winked and blinked in the light, as though his eyes were still weak and his sight tender.
Joseph and Martha Kettle sat in the farther part of the room, close against the wall. Mrs. Caiaphas had given Martha Kettle a “talking-to,” and they were both subdued, almost frightened. Bishop Caiaphas was conducting the examination. He had evidently just asked Tom Kettle how it was he had received his sight. “He put clay on my eyes,” said Tom, briefly, almost sullenly. “Then I went and washed as He told me, and now I can see.”
“How long had you been blind before this happened to you?” asked Dr. Dayton.
“Why,” said Kettle, “that you know as well as I do. I always was blind–I never did see.”
“And do you mean to say,” said Dr. Dayton, “that Christ cured you by simply rubbing dirt on your eyes?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man.