mp of sugar in it,' said I, and struck the
table with my fist.

'Take some!' said the landlord inquiringly.

'No,' said I, 'only something came into my head.'

'He's mad,' said the man in black.

'Not he,' said the Radical. 'He's only shamming; he knows his master is
here, and therefore has recourse to these manoeuvres, but it won't do.
Come, landlord, what are you staring at? Why don't you obey your orders?
Keeping your customers waiting in this manner is not the way to increase
your business.'

The landlord looked at the Radical, and then at me. At last, taking the
jug and glass, he left the apartment, and presently returned with each
filled with its respective liquor. He placed the jug with beer before
the Radical, and the glass with the gin and water before the man in
black, and then, with a wink to me, he sauntered out.

'Here is your health, sir,' said the man of the snuff-coloured coat,
addressing himself to the one in black; 'I honour you for what you said
about the Church of England. Everyone who speaks against the Church of
England has my warm heart. Down with it, I say, and may the stones of it
be used for mending the roads, as my friend William says in his
"Register."'

The man in black, with a courteous nod of his head, drank to the man in
the snuff-coloured coat. 'With respect to the steeples,' said he, 'I am
not altogether of your opinion; they might be turned to better account
than to serve to mend the roads; they might still be used as places of
worship, but not for the worship of the Church of England. I have no
fault to find with the steeples, it is the Church itself which I am
compelled to arraign; but it will not stand long, the respectable part of
its ministers are already leaving it. It is a bad Church, a persecuting
Church.'

'Whom does it persecute?' said I.

The man in black glanced at me slightly, and then replied slowly, 'The
Catholics.'

'And do those whom you call Catholics never persecute?' said I.

'Never,' said the man in black.

'Did you ever read Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_?' said I.

'He! he!' tittered the man in black; 'there is not a word of truth in
Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_.'

'Ten times more than in the _Flos Sanctorum_,' said I.

The man in black looked at me, but made no answer.

'And what say you to the Massacre of the Albigenses and the Vaudois,
"whose bones lie scattered on the cold Alp," or the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes?'

The man in blac