I 'ave for guidance is this--love
thy neighbour as thyself.'

'Hum!' murmured the curate; there was really nothing questionable in
that, but he was just slightly prejudiced against a man who made such a
quotation; it sounded a little priggish.

'But your wife tells me that you've been going about with all sorts of
queer people?'

'I found that there was misery and un'appiness among people, and I tried
to relieve it.'

'Of course, I strongly approve of district visiting; I do a great deal
of it myself; but you've been going about with public-house loafers
and--bad women.'

'Is it not said: "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance"?'

'No doubt,' answered Mr Evans, slightly frowning. 'But obviously one
isn't meant to do that to such an extent as to be dismissed from one's
place.'

'My wife 'as posted you well up in all my private affairs.'

'Well, I don't think you can have done well to be sent away from your
office.'

'Is it not said: "Forsake all and follow me"?'

Decidedly this was bad form, and Mr Evans, pursing up his lips and
raising his eyebrows, was silent. 'That's the worst of these
half-educated people,' he said to himself; 'they get some idea in their
heads which they don't understand, and, of course, they do idiotic
things....'

'Well, to pass over all that,' he added out loud, 'apparently you've
been spending your money on these people to such an extent that your
wife and children are actually inconvenienced by it.'

'I 'ave clothed the naked,' said Mr Clinton, looking into the curate's
eyes; 'I 'ave visited the sick; I 'ave given food to 'im that was an
'ungered, and drink to 'im that was athirst.'

'Yes, yes, yes; that's all very well, but you should always remember
that charity begins at home.... I shouldn't have anything to say to a
rich man's doing these things, but it's positively wicked for you to do
them. Don't you understand that? And last of all, your wife tells me
that you're realising your property with the idea of giving it away.'

'It's perfectly true,' said Mr Clinton.

Mr Evans's mind was too truly pious for a wicked expletive to cross it;
but a bad man expressing the curate's feeling would have said that Mr
Clinton was a damned fool.

'Well, don't you see that it's a perfectly ridiculous and unheard-of
thing?' he asked emphatically.

'"Sell all that thou 'ast, and distribute unto the poor." It is in the
Gospel of St Luke. Do you know it?'

'Of