was probably at the bottom of it. If they were maligned there
could be no objection to his making their acquaintance; if not maligned
they had all the more need of his ministrations. He would reclaim them
at once.

He told Mrs Jupp of his intention. Mrs Jupp at first tried to dissuade
him, but seeing him resolute, suggested that she should herself see Miss
Snow first, so as to prepare her and prevent her from being alarmed by
his visit. She was not at home now, but in the course of the next day,
it should be arranged. In the meantime he had better try Mr Shaw, the
tinker, in the front kitchen. Mrs Baxter had told Ernest that Mr Shaw
was from the North Country, and an avowed freethinker; he would probably,
she said, rather like a visit, but she did not think Ernest would stand
much chance of making a convert of him.

CHAPTER LIX

Before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker Ernest ran
hurriedly over his analysis of Paley's evidences, and put into his pocket
a copy of Archbishop Whateley's "Historic Doubts." Then he descended the
dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker's door. Mr Shaw was
very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if Ernest did not
mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a talk with him.
Our hero, assenting to this, ere long led the conversation to Whateley's
"Historic Doubts"--a work which, as the reader may know, pretends to show
that there never was any such person as Napoleon Buonaparte, and thus
satirises the arguments of those who have attacked the Christian
miracles.

Mr Shaw said he knew "Historic Doubts" very well.

"And what you think of it?" said Ernest, who regarded the pamphlet as a
masterpiece of wit and cogency.

"If you really want to know," said Mr Shaw, with a sly twinkle, "I think
that he who was so willing and able to prove that what was was not, would
be equally able and willing to make a case for thinking that what was not
was, if it suited his purpose." Ernest was very much taken aback. How
was it that all the clever people of Cambridge had never put him up to
this simple rejoinder? The answer is easy: they did not develop it for
the same reason that a hen had never developed webbed feet--that is to
say, because they did not want to do so; but this was before the days of
Evolution, and Ernest could not as yet know anything of the great
principle that underlies it.

"You see," continued Mr Shaw, "these writers