And, as for audiences, for intelligence, for attention--well, if I
want to find listeners who can hear and understand about the great
spaces of Lake Huron, let me tell of it, every time face to face with
the blue eyes of the Infant Class, fresh from the infinity of spaces
greater still. Talk of grown-up people all you like, but for
listeners let me have the Infant Class with their pinafores and their
Teddy Bears and their feet not even touching the floor, and Mr.
Uttermost may preach to his heart's content of the newer forms of
doubt revealed by the higher criticism.

So you will understand that the Dean's mind is, if anything, even
keener, and his head even clearer than before. And if you want proof
of it, notice him there beneath the plum blossoms reading in the
Greek: he has told me that he finds that he can read, with the
greatest ease, works in the Greek that seemed difficult before.
Because his head is so clear now.

And sometimes,--when his head is very clear,--as he sits there
reading beneath the plum blossoms he can hear them singing beyond,
and his wife's voice.



SEVEN

The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin

Judge Pepperleigh lived in a big house with hardwood floors and a
wide piazza that looked over the lake from the top of Oneida Street.