ning
timber. _It is a living thing_.

BISHOP [in a hoarse whisper, self-engrossed]. Numberless millions!

MANSON. When you enter it you hear a sound--a sound as of some
mighty poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you will learn that
it is made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music
of men's souls--that is, if you have ears. If you have eyes, you
will presently see the church itself--a looming mystery of many
shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of
no ordinary builder!

BISHOP [trumpet down]. On the security of one man's name!

MANSON. The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes:
the sweet human flesh of men and women is moulded about its
bulwarks, strong, impregnable: the faces of little children laugh
out from every corner-stone: the terrible spans and arches of it
are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces
there are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of
the world. It is yet building--building and built upon. Sometimes
the work goes forward in deep darkness: sometimes in blinding
light: now beneath the burden of unutterable anguish: now to the
tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of
thunder. [Softer.] Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time,
one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the
dome--the comrades that have climbed ahead.

[There is a short silence, broken only by the champing jaws of the
BISHOP, who has resumed his sausages. ROBERT speaks first.]

ROBERT [slowly]. I think I begin to understand you, comride:
especially that bit abaht . . . [his eyes stray upwards] . . .
the 'ammerins' an' the--the harches--an' . . . Humph! I'm only an
'og! . . .

S'pose there's no drain 'ands wanted in that there church o' yours?

MANSON. Drains are a very important question there at present.

ROBERT. Why, I'd be cussin' over every stinkin' pipe I laid.

MANSON. I should make that a condition, comrade.

ROBERT [rising, he pulls off the cassock; goes to fire for his
coat: returns: drags it on]. I don't know! Things 'av' got in a
bit of a muck with me! I'm rather like a drain-pipe myself.

[With sudden inspiration]. There's one thing I _can_ do!

MANSON. What's that?

ROBERT. Renahnce ole Beelzebub an' all 'is bloomin' wirks! 'And
us that brarss-band!

[He alludes to the ear-trumpet. MANSON obeying, ROBERT jabs it
into the ear of the BISHOP