know any one of
our generation who believes. Every one thinks every one else believes,
and everybody is most careful not to be disrespectful about the belief
everybody else is supposed to hold. But, begad, nobody believes himself.
We all wink at each other about it; accepting the certainty of every one
else's belief, and only recognizing as a matter of course that you and
me--we've got beyond that sort of thing."

"Well, I've often thought of it," said Brown. "I'll write an article
about it one of these days."

"Who'll you get to publish it?"

"H'm! Yes, that's a fact. And yet, hang it, you know, how absurd! Who
is there in this office that believes?"

"Echo answers, 'who?'"

"I happen to know that both Rainham and Baddeley go to church," said
Dunbar, naming a proprietor and a manager.

"I don't see the connection," said Brown.

"Because there isn't any," said Campbell. "But Dunbar sees it, and so
does the British public, begad. That's the kernel of the whole thing.
That's why every one thinks every one else, except himself, believes.
Rainham and Baddeley think their wives, and sons, and servants, and
circle generally believe, and therefore would be shocked if Rainham and
Baddeley didn't go to church. And every one else thinks the same. So
they all go."

"But, my dear chap, they don't all go. The parsons are always
complaining about it. The women do, but the men don't--not as a rule, I
mean; particularly when they've got motors, and golf, and things. You
know they don't. Here's six of us here. Does any one of us ever go to
church?"

Dunbar, looking straight down over his nose, said: "I do--often."

"You're a fine fellow, Dunbar, sure enough," said Campbell; "and I
believe you'll be a newspaper proprietor in five years. You've got your
finger on the pulse. Can you look me in the face and say you believe?"

Dunbar smiled in his knowing way and wobbled. "I certainly believe it's
a good thing to go to church occasionally," he said.

"And I believe you'll make a fortune in Fleet Street, my son."

"Well, in my humble opinion," said Kelly, "the trouble with you people
in England is not so much that you don't believe; a good many believe,
in a kind of a way, like they believe in ventilation, without troubling
to act on it. They believe, but they don't think about it; they don't
care, it isn't real. The poor beggars 'ld go crazy with fear of
hell-fire, if the sort of armchair belief they have was real to 'em. It