tones_] We're not Church people, you
know.

HASLAM. Oh, I don't mind that, if you don't. The Church people here are
mostly as dull as ditch-water. I have heard such a lot about you; and
there are so jolly few people to talk to. I thought you perhaps wouldn't
mind. _Do_ you mind? for of course I'll go like a shot if I'm in the
way.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_rising, disarmed_] Sit down, Mr--er?

HASLAM. Haslam.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN. Mr Haslam.

THE TWEEDED GENTLEMAN [_rising and offering him the stool_] Sit down.
[_He retreats towards the Chippendale chairs_].

HASLAM [_sitting down on the stool_] Thanks awfully.

THE CLERICAL GENTLEMAN [_resuming his seat_] This is my brother Conrad,
Professor of Biology at Jarrowfields University: Dr. Conrad Barnabas. My
name is Franklyn: Franklyn Barnabas. I was in the Church myself for some
years.

HASLAM [_sympathizing_] Yes: one cant help it. If theres a living in
the family, or one's Governor knows a patron, one gets shoved into the
Church by one's parents.

CONRAD [_sitting down on the furthest Chippendale with a snort of
amusement_] Mp!

FRANKLYN. One gets shoved out of it, sometimes, by one's conscience.

HASLAM. Oh yes; but where is a chap like me to go? I'm afraid I'm not
intellectual enough to split straws when theres a job in front of me,
and nothing better for me to do. I daresay the Church was a bit thick
for you; but it's good enough for me. It will last my time, anyhow [_he
laughs good-humoredly_].

FRANKLYN [_with renewed energy_] There again! You see, Con. It will last
his time. Life is too short for men to take it seriously.

HASLAM. Thats a way of looking at it, certainly.

FRANKLYN. I was not shoved into the Church, Mr Haslam: I felt it to be
my vocation to walk with God, like Enoch. After twenty years of it I
realized that I was walking with my own ignorance and self-conceit, and
that I was not within a hundred and fifty years of the experience and
wisdom I was pretending to.

HASLAM. Now I come to think of it, old Methuselah must have had to think
twice before he took on anything for life. If I thought I was going to
live nine hundred and sixty years, I don't think I should stay in the
Church.

FRANKLYN. If men lived even a third of that time, the Church would be
very different from the thing it is.

CONRAD. If I could count on nine hundred and sixty years I could make
myself a real biologist, instead of what I am now: a child trying to