of soup near us, I felt
quite sorry for. Every time he got the spoon near his mouth an officer
invariably hove in view, and down would have to go the spoon, soup and
all, and up he would have to rise. It never seemed to occur to the silly
fellow to get under the table and finish his dinner there.

We had half-an-hour to spare between dinner and the starting of our
train, and B. suggested that we should go into the cathedral. That is
B.'s one weakness, churches. I have the greatest difficulty in getting
him past a church-door. We are walking along a street, arm in arm,
talking as rationally and even as virtuously as need be, when all at once
I find that B. has become silent and abstracted.

I know what it is; he has caught sight of a church. I pretend not to
notice any change in him, and endeavour to hurry him on. He lags more
and more behind, however, and at last stops altogether.

"Come, come," I say to him, encouragingly, "pull yourself together, and
be a man. Don't think about it. Put it behind you, and determine that
you _won't_ be conquered. Come, we shall be round the corner in another
minute, where you won't be able to see it. Take my hand, and let's run!"

He makes a few feeble steps forward with me, and then stops again.

"It's no good, old man," he says, with a sickly smile, so full of pathos
that it is impossible to find it in one's heart to feel anything but pity
for him. "I can't help it. I have given way to this sort of thing too
long. It is too late to reform now. You go on and get a drink
somewhere; I'll join you again in a few minutes. Don't worry about me;
it's no good."

And back he goes with tottering steps, while I sadly pass on into the
nearest cafe, and, over a glass of absinthe or cognac, thank Providence
that I learnt to control my craving for churches in early youth, and so
am not now like this poor B.

In a little while he comes in, and sits down beside me. There is a wild,
unhealthy excitement in his eye, and, under a defiant air of unnatural
gaiety, he attempts to hide his consciousness of guilt.

"It was a lovely altar-cloth," he whispers to me, with an enthusiasm that
only makes one sorrow for him the more, so utterly impossible does it
cause all hope of cure to seem. "And they've got a coffin in the north
crypt that is simply a poem. I never enjoyed a sarcophagus more in all
my life."

I do not say much at the time; it would be useless. But after the day is