Page:The Unspeakable Gentleman (IA unspeakablegent00marq).pdf/251

 and driven. It has set me thinking, Jason. As I walked back here tonight, I still was thinking, and can you imagine what was on my mind? It was you, Jason, you and Lawton. And as I thought of you, my mind fell, as it naturally would, on holy things, and a piece of the Scripture came back to me. Think of it, Jason, a piece of the Holy Writ. Would you care to hear it?"

My father paused to adjust a wrinkle in his coat, and then his voice became solemn and sonorous, and he spoke the words with metrical precision.

"'To everything'," said my father, "' [sic]there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die'."

He paused long enough to nod from one to the other.

"'A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted'."

He raised his eyes to the ceiling again, and placed the tips of his fingers together.

"And 'a time to kill'," he concluded gently. His words died softly away in the quiet room.

"I have often thought of that passage," he continued. "Many and many a night I have repeated it to myself, under stars