"Rupert, you do not understand. I will tell you. You know the story of Joseph. Well, when his brothers tried to murder him, that was what you call evil, wasn't it?"
"Black, and no moonshine on it."
"Yet it led to his being sold into Egypt."
"What was the moonshine on that? He was a slave, warn't he?"
"But that brought him to be governor of Egypt; he was the means of the plenty in the land through those years of famine; and by his power and influence his family was placed in the best of the land when starvation drove them down there."
"But why must he be sold a slave to begin with?"
"Good reasons. As a servant of Potiphar he learned to know all about the land and its produce and its cultivation, and the peasant people that cultivated it. If it had not been for the knowledge he gained as a slave, Joseph could never have known what to do as a governor."
"I never thought of that," said Rupert, his tone changing.
"Then when he was thrown into prison, you would have said that was a black experience too?"
"I should, and no mistake."