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60 the story, Bill, who had been listening with great interest, said:

"I say, pard, I think I'll call you just now."

"I beg your pardon!" said the startled missionary.

"You're givin' us quite a song and dance now, ain't you?"

"I don't understand." was the puzzled reply.

"How many men was there in the crowd?" asked Bill, with a judicial air.

"Five thousand."

"And how much grub?"

"Five loaves and two fishes," answered Bruce for the missionary.

"Well," drawled Bill, with the air of a man who has reached a conclusion, "that's a little too unusual for me. Why," looking pityingly at the missionary, "it ain't natarel."

"Right you are, my boy," said Bruce, with a laugh. "It's deucedly unnatural.

"Not for Him," said the missionary, quietly. Then Bruce joyfully took him up and led him on into a discussion of evidences, and from evidences into metaphysics, the origin of evil and the freedom of the will, till the missionary, as Bill said, "was rattled worse nor a rooster in the dark."