led in my deck-chair, clothed in my Cambridge blue
sleeping-suit, and Doe lay with his pink stripes peeping from
beneath the grey embroidered kimono.

It had become a regular practice, our nightly talk with Monty on
what he called "Big Things." Certainly he did most of the talking.
But his ideas were so new and illuminating, and he opened up such
undreamed-of vistas of thought, that we were pleased to lie lazily
and listen.

"What's it to be to-night?" he began, as he walked up to us; but he
suddenly saw our pyjama outfit, and was very rude about it, calling
us "popinjays," and "degenerate aesthetes." "My poor boys," he summed
up, as he dropped into the chair, which we had thoughtfully placed
between us for his judgment throne, "you can't help it, but you're a
public nuisance and an offence against society. What's it to be
to-night?"

"Tell us about confession," I said, and curled myself up to listen.

"Right," agreed Monty.

"But wait," warned Doe. "You're not going to get me to come to
confession. I value your good opinion too highly."

"My dear Gazelle, don't be absurd. I'll have your promise to-night."

"You won't!"

"I will! Here goes."

And Monty opened with a preliminary bombardment in which, in his
shattering style, he fired at us every argument that ever has been
adduced for private confession--"the Sacrament of Penance," as he
startled us by calling it. The Bible was poured out upon us. The
doctrine and practice of the Church came hurtling after. Then
suddenly he threw away theological weapons, and launched a
specialised attack on each of us in turn, obviously suiting his
words to his reading of our separate characters. He turned on me,
and said:

"You see, Rupert. Confession is simply the consecration of your own
natural instinct--the instinct to unburden yourself to one who waits
with love and a gift of forgiveness--the instinct to have someone in
the world who knows exactly all that you are. You realise that you
are utterly lonely, as long as you are acting a part before all the
world. But your loneliness goes when you know of at least one to
whom you stand revealed."

As he said it, my whole soul seemed to answer "Yes."

"It's so," he continued. "Christianity from beginning to end is the
consecration of human instincts."

So warmed up was he to his subject that he brought out his next
arguments like an exultant player leading honour after honour from a
hand of trumps. He slapped me trium