On this same day in the forenoon, Jasper Carter sat in his office at the Gazette building. Barnes sat opposite him. On the faces of both men was a look of deep feeling, and on Carter’s it seemed near the point, every moment, of breaking out into one of his fits of characteristic anger and irritability.

“Nothing but a fake, a great big fake from beginning to end,” Carter said as if he hadn’t already said it several times.

“Of course I don’t agree with you, Mr. Carter,” Barnes said very quietly. “But what is the use of arguing about it?”

“Arguing!” exclaimed Carter angrily. “Who is arguing? I am stating a fact. This person you call Jesus was a faker. What did he do while he was here?”

“He converted me, for one thing,” said Barnes gently.

Carter started as if he had been struck. “Well, I admit that was something unusual. But name anything else he did.”

Barnes did not offer to say anything.

“Name anything else!” Carter persisted.

“I thought you just said you didn’t want to argue about it.”

“I don’t. But name anything else this person you are so sure was Jesus did to prove the claim.”

“Well,” said Barnes, as his eyes began to flash with his old-time eagerness, tempered now by his newborn passion for his Master, “neither you nor the whole army of press representatives could secure a single photograph of him. I call that something.”

“A trick. It will be exposed some time. But when he had a chance to do a real miracle, he failed. He couldn’t raise Mrs. Page’s child to life when he was asked.”

“He would not.”

“He did not. And did he heal any sick people while he was here?”

“I don’t know. And if he had raised the child to life and healed every sick person in town, would you have believed in him any more than you do now?”

“That is not the question!” Carter grew angry again. “If he is Jesus, he would have to do miracles.”

“Mr. Carter, would you call that manuscript you asked me to read a literary miracle?”

Carter did not speak for a few moments. Then he exclaimed sullenly, “No, just clever.”

“Did you ever hear such a public speaker with such perfect command over an audience as the times you heard him?”

Carter hesitated. Lying was not generally one of his faults. “No. I acknowledge I never heard his equal. But that would not make him divine.”

“But how about his stilling the riot in front of First Church? Do you think a mere man could have done a thing like that?”

“The crowd was exhausted. He waited for the psychological instant before he spoke. I don’t see anything astonishing about it. What other proofs have you to offer of his being the Jesus of history?”