- end_line
- 10537
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.726Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10461
- text
- "And so you _have_ good news there, sir--the very best of good news."
"Too good to be true," here came from one of the curtained berths.
"Hark!" said the cosmopolitan. "Some one talks in his sleep."
"Yes," said the old man, "and you--_you_ seem to be talking in a dream.
Why speak you, sir, of news, and all that, when you must see this is a
book I have here--the Bible, not a newspaper?"
"I know that; and when you are through with it--but not a moment
sooner--I will thank you for it. It belongs to the boat, I believe--a
present from a society."
"Oh, take it, take it!"
"Nay, sir, I did not mean to touch you at all. I simply stated the fact
in explanation of my waiting here--nothing more. Read on, sir, or you
will distress me."
This courtesy was not without effect. Removing his spectacles, and
saying he had about finished his chapter, the old man kindly presented
the volume, which was received with thanks equally kind. After reading
for some minutes, until his expression merged from attentiveness into
seriousness, and from that into a kind of pain, the cosmopolitan slowly
laid down the book, and turning to the old man, who thus far had been
watching him with benign curiosity, said: "Can you, my aged friend,
resolve me a doubt--a disturbing doubt?"
"There are doubts, sir," replied the old man, with a changed
countenance, "there are doubts, sir, which, if man have them, it is not
man that can solve them."
"True; but look, now, what my doubt is. I am one who thinks well of man.
I love man. I have confidence in man. But what was told me not a
half-hour since? I was told that I would find it written--'Believe not
his many words--an enemy speaketh sweetly with his lips'--and also I was
told that I would find a good deal more to the same effect, and all in
this book. I could not think it; and, coming here to look for myself,
what do I read? Not only just what was quoted, but also, as was engaged,
more to the same purpose, such as this: 'With much communication he will
tempt thee; he will smile upon thee, and speak thee fair, and say What
wantest thou? If thou be for his profit he will use thee; he will make
thee bear, and will not be sorry for it. Observe and take good heed.
When thou hearest these things, awake in thy sleep.'"
"Who's that describing the confidence-man?" here came from the berth
again.
"Awake in his sleep, sure enough, ain't he?" said the cosmopolitan,
again looking off in surprise. "Same voice as before, ain't it? Strange
sort of dreamy man, that. Which is his berth, pray?"
"Never mind _him_, sir," said the old man anxiously, "but tell me truly,
did you, indeed, read from the book just now?"
"I did," with changed air, "and gall and wormwood it is to me, a truster
in man; to me, a philanthropist."
"Why," moved, "you don't mean to say, that what you repeated is really
down there? Man and boy, I have read the good book this seventy years,
and don't remember seeing anything like that. Let me see it," rising
earnestly, and going round to him.
"There it is; and there--and there"--turning over the leaves, and
pointing to the sentences one by one; "there--all down in the 'Wisdom of
Jesus, the Son of Sirach.'"
"Ah!" cried the old man, brightening up, "now I know. Look," turning the
leaves forward and back, till all the Old Testament lay flat on one
side, and all the New Testament flat on the other, while in his fingers
he supported vertically the portion between, "look, sir, all this to the
right is certain truth, and all this to the left is certain truth, but
all I hold in my hand here is apocrypha."
"Apocrypha?"
- title
- Chunk 2