The second hymn was better, and then came the Lesson, the story of the feeding of the five thousand.

As the missionary finished 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." Poor little Mrs.Muir was much scandalized and looked anxiously at her husband, wishing him to take her out.