Needless to say his advent was a great boon to me, for as he
lived in a house I let him quite near by, whenever he had a spare
evening he would drop in to dinner, and from our absolutely
opposite standpoints we discussed all things human and divine.
Thus I was enabled to sharpen my wits upon the hard steel of his
clear intellect which was yet, in a sense, so limited.

I must add that I never converted him to my way of thinking and
he never converted me to his, any more than he converted Bastin,
for whom, queerly enough, he had a liking. They pounded away at
each other, Bickley frequently getting the best of it in the
argument, and when at last Bastin rose to go, he generally made
the same remark. It was:

"It really is sad, my dear Bickley, to find a man of your
intellect so utterly wrongheaded and misguided. I have convicted
you of error at least half a dozen times, and not to confess it
is mere pigheadedness. Good night. I am sure that Sarah will be
sitting up for me."

"Silly old idiot!" Bickley would say, shaking his fist after
him. "The only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw
his head open and pour it in."

Then we would both laugh.

Such were my two most intimate friends, although I admit it was
rather like the equator cultivating close relationships with the
north and south poles. Certainly Bastin was as far from Bickley
as those points of the earth are apart, while I. as it were, sat