ad suffered, who had
conquered; but the air of one whose victory was barren, who was looking
into the void for the things unconquerable yet essential to salvation.
Paul made a little gesture of attention. He could find no words to
reply. A man's deep profession of faith is unanswerable.

"Ah," said Barney Bill, "you ought to have come along o' me, Silas,
years ago in the old 'bus. You mightn't have got all these bright
pictures, but you wouldn't have had these 'ere gloomy ideas. I don't
say as how I don't hold with Gawd," he explained, with uplifted
forefinger and cocked head; "but if ever I thinks of Him, I like to
feel that He's in the wind or in the crickle-crackle of the earth, just
near and friendly like, but not a-worrying of a chap, listening for
every cuss-word as he uses to his old horse, and measuring every
half-pint he pours down his dusty throat. No. That ain't my idea of
Gawd. But then I ain't got religion."

"Still the same old pagan," laughed Paul.

"No, not the same, sonny," said Barney Bill, holding up his knife,
which supported a morsel of cheese. "Old. Rheumaticky. Got to live in a
'ouse when it rains--me who never keered whether I was baked to a
cinder or wet through! I ain't a pagan no more. I'm a crock."

Jane smiled affectionately at the old man, and her face was lit with
rare sweetness when she smiled. "He really is just the same," she said.

"He hasn't changed much in forty years," said Mr. Finn.

"I was a good Conservative then, as I am now," said Bill. "That's one
thing, anyhow. So was you, Silas. But you had Radical leanings."

Barney Bill's remark set the talk on political lines. Paul learned that
his host had sat for a year or more as a Progressive on the Hickney
Heath Borough Council and aspired to a seat in Parliament.

"The Kingdom of Heaven," said he, not unctuously or hypocritically, but
in his grave tone of conviction, "is not adequately represented in the
House."

Paul pointed out that in the House of Lords one had the whole bench of
Bishops.

"I'm not a member of the Established Church, Mr. Savelli," replied Mr.
Finn. "I'm a Dissenter--a Free Zion'st."

"I've heard him conduc' the service," said Barney Bill. "He built the
Meeting House close by, yer know. I goes sometimes to try and get
converted. But I'm too old and stiff in the j'ints. No longer a pagan,
but a crock, sonny. But I likes to listen to him. Gorbli--bless me,
it's a real bean feast--that's what it is. He t