now your Bible."

"No, that's true. I don't suppose I ever in my life read a whole
chapter in the book. I can't swallow such stuff, Lafelle--utterly
unreasonable, wholly inconsistent with facts and natural laws, as we
know and are able to observe them. Even as a child I never had any
use for fairy-tales, or wonder-stories. I always wanted facts,
tangible, concrete, irrefutable facts, not hypotheses. The Protestant
churches hand out a mess of incoherent guesswork, based on as many
interpretations of the Bible as there are human minds sufficiently
interested to interpret it, and then wax hot and angry when
hard-headed business men like myself refuse to subscribe to it.
It's preposterous, Lafelle! If they had anything tangible to
offer, it would be different. But I go to church for the looks of
the thing, and for business reasons; and then stick pins into myself
to keep awake while I listen to pedagogical Borwell tell what he
doesn't know about God and man. Then at the close of the service I
drop a five-dollar bill into the plate for the entertainment, and
go away with the feeling that I didn't get my money's worth. From a
business point of view, a Protestant church service is worth about
twenty-five cents for the music, and five cents for the privilege of
sleeping on a soft cushion. So you see I lose four dollars and
seventy cents every time I attend. You Catholic fellows, with your
ceremonial and legerdemain, give a much better entertainment.
Besides, I like to hear your priests soak it to their cowering
flocks."

Lafelle sighed. "I shall have to class you with the incorrigibles," he
said with a rueful air. "I am sorry you take such a harsh attitude
toward us. We are really more spiritual--"

Ames interrupted with a roar of laughter. "Don't! don't!" he pleaded,
holding up a hand. "Why, Lafelle, you old fraud, I look upon your
Church as a huge business institution, a gigantic trust, as mercenary
and merciless as Steel, Oil, or Tobacco! Why, you and I are in the
same business, that of making money! And I'd like to borrow some of
your methods. You catch 'em through religion. I have to use other
methods. But the end is the same. Only, you've got it over me, for you
hurl the weight of centuries of authority upon the poor, trembling
public; and I have to beat them down with clubs of my own making.
Moreover, the law protects you in all your pious methods; while I have
to hire expensive legal talent to get around it."

"Yo