an exception may be made in their favour, but what says the
poet:--

O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill.

Come, along, though, for we have much to see before sunset."

"You don't think that good is going to come out of the devil and
mosquitoes?"

"Yes I do; not to themselves, perhaps, but to humanity."

"I saw a book once with the title "Why Doesn't God Kill the Devil?" and
sympathized with it. Why doesn't He?"

"Because man wants the devil. As soon as the world ceases to want him,
so soon is his occupation gone."

"Wilks, my dear, that's an awful responsibility lying on us men, and I
fear what you say is too true. So here's for the shale works."

The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the
deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been
distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large
numbers. Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites
chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a
museum. These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied
up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick
and carried over his shoulder. The lawyer also gathered a few, and
bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking
materials. The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the
mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the
breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.

"Where has he been? How came we not to miss him?" asked the dominie, and
Coristine answered rather obliquely:--

"I don't remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood. Surely he
didn't go back to the Grinstun man."

"It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins," remarked Wilkinson;
"Tray seems to be the favourite name. Cowper's dogs are different, and
Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like
Actaeon's dogs in 'Ovid.' Nevertheless, I like Muggins."

"Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:--

To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,
I can never return with my old dog Tray;
He's lazy and he's blind,
You'll never, never find
A bigger thief than old dog Tray."

"Corry, this is bathos of the worst description. You are like a
caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch."

"Wilks, that's hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar h