"What have we here?" he asked, picking up one of the embossed books lying open on the table near Karl.
"I presume that's my Bible," Karl replied.
"Has it come to this?" the doctor asked dryly.
"Didn't we ever tell you the story of my Bible?"
"No. You never did. I never suspected you had one."
"Oh yes; the Bible was the first book of this sort I had. It was sent to me by some home missionary society, some woman's organization—"
"Fools!" broke in Parkman.
"They saw in the paper about my eyes and so they said to themselves—'Now here is a good chance to convert one of those ungodly scientists.' So they sent the Bible along with a nice little note saying that now I would have time to read it, and perhaps all of this was the hand of God leading me—you can construct the rest. Well." he paused with a laugh—"Ernestine was mad."
"I should hope so!" growled Parkman.
"She was so divinely angry that in having fun with her I overlooked being enraged myself. Oh, if I could only give you any idea of how incensed she was! I think she intended notifying the Chicago police. Really I don't know to what lengths she would have gone had it not been for my restraining influence. And then she constructed a letter. It was a masterpiece—I can tell you that. She compared me to them—greatly to their disadvantage. She spoke of the various kinds of religious manifestation—again greatly to their disadvantage."