This was the final agreement, and Benjamin never dreamed that Governor Keith was not honest. If he had divulged to Mr. Read, or Bradford, or even to Mr. Keimer, what the governor proposed, they would have exposed his deceitful, unreliable character, and the enterprise would have been abandoned.
XXV.
WORKING, READING, AND COURTING.
Benjamin continued to work for Keimer, who did not suspect that his employee was planning to set up business for himself. Keimer was a very singular, erratic man, believing little in the Christian religion, and yet given to a kind of fanaticism on certain lines.
"Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard," he quoted from the Mosaic law, as a reason for wearing a long beard, when Benjamin inquired of him:
"Then you think that passage means 'Thou shalt not shave,' if I understand you?" asked Benjamin.
"Yes, that is about it; and I feel religiously bound to observe it."
"Well, I prefer a religion that is seated in the heart instead of the beard." And there was a twinkle in Benjamin's eye when he said it.
He enjoyed arguing with Keimer, and frequently had a contest with him in argument. Keimer had come to respect his abilities. Indeed, he considered Benjamin the most remarkable young man he ever met.
"It is the religion of the heart that settles the length of the beard, my youthful Socrates." By this reference to Socrates, Keimer meant to slap Benjamin's Socratic method of argument, about which he talked much. "Can't you see it?"