"No, Sir, and it never can be. Perhaps, after all, my discovery, if you please to call it such, wasn't due to wisdom but to an animal instinct. And even then it was a venture. You could have denied it better."
He came walking slowly forward, with his eyes fixed upon my writing-table.
"That is one thing I can't learn to do well," he said, gazing at my work. "My hand was too hard and stiff from labor before I went to school."
"Then you don't write your sermons?"
"No, Sir, and Peter didn't write his."
"But you went to a college and Peter didn't."
"Ah, but Paul was learned of men, and Paul was the Master's greatest follower."
"Washington, you are surely a remarkable man. How old were you at the time you entered the university?"
"I don't know, Mr. Belford; I don't know how old I am now."
"Well, I have fought against you, but I can't help believing that you are sincere. Here are five dollars for your church."