Page:Christopher Morley--Where the blue begins.djvu/110

96 than I thought. Look here: if the more you know, the less you know about God, doesn't that mean that God is really enjoyed only by the completely simple—by faith, never by reason?

He gave twenty-five cents to a beggar, and said angrily: “I am not interested in a God who is known only by faith.”

When he got uptown he was very tired and hungry. In spite of all Mrs. Purp's rules, he smuggled in an egg, a box of biscuits, a small packet of tea and sugar, and a tin of condensed milk. He emptied the milk into his shaving mug, and used the tin to boil water in, holding it over the gas jet. He was getting on finely when a sudden knock on the door made him jump. He spilled the hot water on his leg, and uttered a wild yell.

Mrs. Purp burst in, but she was so excited that she did not notice the egg seeping into the clean counterpane.

“Oh, Mr. Gissing,” she exclaimed, “I've been waiting all evening for you to come in. Purp and I wondered if you'd seen this in the paper to-night? Purp noticed it in the ads., but we couldn't understand what it meant.”