"Iss, silence for ever and ever, amen," said Towy. "No trial I need. How
can the Judge judge if there's no judging to be? Go up will I then. Hope
to see you again, Shames."

The Overseer tightened his girdle. "Thus saith the Lord," he proclaimed:
"'I will consider each by his deeds or all by the deeds of their two
apostles.'"

"Ho-ho," said Towy. "Half one moment. Think will we. Dissenters, crowd
here. Ben Lloyd, make arguments. Tricky is old Shames."

The Dissenters assembled close to Ben and Towy, and the Church people
crept near them in order to share their counsel; but the Dissenters
turned upon their enemies and bruised them with fists and Bibles and
hymn-books, and called them frogs, turks, thieves, atheists, blacks; and
there never has been heard such a tumult in any house. Alarmed that he
could not part one side from the other, the Overseer sought Satan, who
had a name for crafty dealings with disputants.

Satan was distressed. "If it was not for personal reasons," he said, "I
would let them go to Hell." He sent into the Chamber a carpenter who put
a barrier from wall to wall, and he appointed Jude in charge of the
barrier to guard that no one went under it or over it.

Then the wise men of the Dissenters continued to examine the Lord's
offer; and a thousand men declared they were holy enough to go before
God, and from the thousand five hundred were cast out, and from the five
hundred three hundred, and from the two hundred one hundred were cast
away. Now this hundred were Baptists, Methodists, and
Congregationalists, and they quarreled so harshly and decried one
another so spitefully that Ben and Towy made with them a compact to
speak specially for each of them in the private ear of God. The strife
quelled and Towy having cried loudly: "Dissenters and Churchers, glad
you are that me and Ben Lloyd, Hem Pee, are your apostles," he and Ben
followed the Overseer.

In the Judgment Hall the two apostles crouched to pray, and they were
stirred by Satan laying his hands on their shoulders.

"Prayers are useless here, my friends," said the Devil. "We must proceed
with the business. I am just as anxious as you are that everything
reaches a satisfactory conclusion."

"I object," said Ben. "Solemnly object. I don't know this infidel. I
don't want to know him."

"Go from here," Towy gruntled. "A sweat is in my whiskers. Inhabitants,
why isn't his tongue a red-hot poker?... Well, boys Palace, grand this
is. Say