Not that I ever saw him rough or uncourteous with the most exasperating fool that ever rubbed a man's nervous system the wrong way; but there was a quiet, lurking smile which, supported by very few words, used to seem to have the singular property of making the utterers of platitudes and the mistakers of non-sequiturs for sequiturs, uncomfortably aware of the nature of their words within a very few minutes after they had uttered them.

" As a natural sequitur to this delicious train of reasoning, he proceeds to take this nonentity, this "myth," as his guide throughout the narrative of the Conquest.

He immediately follows this non-sequitur with a reference to the lying Hebrew midwives, and he quotes the declaration of God's blessing on them, as if it were an approval of their lying, or their false speaking with an intention to deceive, instead of an approval of their spirit of devotion to God's people.