144 : BATTLES OF THE BIBLE.

Johnnie. But how could they expect her to find out
the riddle when they could not do it themselves ?

Grandfather. They meant her to ask her husband,
which she did, and teased him so much and so long that
he told her the meaning of the riddle. She went straight
to her own countrymen and told it to them. So on the
seventh day of the feast they were able to come to
Samson with the answer, “ What is sweeter than honey,
and what is stronger than a lion ?”

Johnnie. Was that the answer, grandfather ? I do not
understand the riddle at all.

Grandfather. You remember of the honey that Samson
found in the skeleton of the lion; that was meat coming
out of the eater, and the sweetest of food coming out of
the strongest of animals.

Marianne. But the Philistines did not find out the
riddle themselves. Samson would not be obliged to
give them the suits of clothes that he had promised in
case they found it out; they did not deserve them.

Grandfather. Samson knew that they had taken a
base method to find out the answer to the riddle, so that
they were not justly entitled to the garments, but he did
not refuse to give them. He went to Askelon, a town of
the Philistines; there he slew thirty men, and gave their
garménts to the thirty young men at Timnath.

Marianne. That was a strange thing to do, grand-
father. These other thirty men had not done him any
harm.

Grandfather. You must remember that Samson was