had not tried to impregnate his mind with their religious theories and
doctrines, for being without religious interests, Dan was strictly
orthodox.

He did not suspect Azariah, whom he knew to be withal orthodox, as much
as Azariah's friend, Apollonius, the Alexandrian Jew. But though he kept
his ears open for the slightest word he could not discover any trace of
his influence. If his discourse had had any effect, it was to make
Joseph more than ever a Pharisee. He was sometimes even inclined to
think that Joseph was a little too particular, laying too much stress
upon the practice of minute observances, and he began to apprehend that
there was something of the Scribe in Joseph after all. The significance
of his mother's words becoming suddenly clear to Dan, he asked himself
if it were not yet within the width of a finger that Joseph would tire
of trade and retire to Jerusalem and expound the law and the traditions
in the Temple. His vocation, Dan was of opinion, could not yet be
predicted with any certainty: he might go either way--to trade or to
religious learning--and in the midst of these meditations on his son's
character Dan remembered that some friends had come to see Joseph at the
counting-house yesterday. Joseph had taken them out into the yard and
they had talked together, but it was not of the export of salt fish they
had spoken, but of the observances of the Sabbath. Dan had listened, pen
in hand, his thoughts suspended, and had heard them devote many minutes
to the question whether a man should dip himself in the nearest brook if
he had accidentally touched a pig. He had heard them discuss at length
the grace that should be used before eating fruit from a tree, and
whether it were necessary to say three graces after eating three kinds
of fruit at one meal. He had heard one ask if a sheep that had been
killed with a Greek knife could be eaten, and he had heard Joseph ask
him if he knew the sheep had been killed with a Greek knife and the man