t contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging
about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in
charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to
hand all beggars over to the police."

"That's not very good Christianity, is it?" asked Helmsley quietly.

Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and
stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.

"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What--what do you mean? How
dare you speak to me about Christianity!"

"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great
hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk
to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i'
this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"

Arbroath grew livid, but his inward rage held him speechless.

"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly--"That's as true as
there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a
carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a
rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they
were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with
them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"

"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe,
"of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an'
passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink
chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits
wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it
wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an'
lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an'
sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt
'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby
boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't
ye,"--and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,--"don't ye, for
all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere
reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art
o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a
comprehensive smile round at the company,--then taking up his hat, he
put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'.
Good-den, Tom! Good-den,