“Not you,” said East laughingly.—“I know him of old, Arthur, and you'll find him out some day. There isn't such a reasonable fellow in the world, to hear him talk. He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when I'm on his side.”
“Now, Harry,” said Tom, “no more chaff. I'm serious. Look here. This is what makes my blood tingle.” And he turned over the pages of his Bible and read, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” He read the last verse twice, emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were hard to part with.
They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, “Yes, that's a glorious story, but it don't prove your point, Tom, I think. There are times when there is only one way, and that the highest, and then the men are found to stand in the breach.”
“There's always a highest way, and it's always the right one,” said Tom. “How many times has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the last year, I should like to know?”
“Well, you ain't going to convince us—is he, Arthur? No Brown compromise to-night,” said East, looking at his watch. “But it's past eight, and we must go to first lesson. What a bore!”
So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur didn't forget, and thought long and often over the conversation.
