.

"The Cyril Baptiste?" she asked. She had often wondered what he might be
like.

"The Cyril Baptiste," he answered, in a low, even, passionate voice, that
he flung at her almost like a blow. "The atheist, the gaol bird, the
pariah, the blasphemer, the anti-Christ. I've hoofs instead of feet.
Shall I take off my boots and show them to you? I tuck my tail inside my
coat. You can't see my horns. I've cut them off close to my head.
That's why I wear my hair long: to hide the stumps."

Mary had been searching in the pockets of his cloak. She had found a
paper bag. "You mustn't get excited," she said, laying her little work-
worn hand upon his shoulder; "or you'll bring on the bleeding."

"Aye," he answered, "I must be careful I don't die on Christmas Day. It
would make a fine text, that, for their sermons."

He lapsed into silence: his almost transparent hands stretched out
towards the fire.

Mr. Simson fidgeted. The quiet of the room, broken only by Mary's
ministering activities, evidently oppressed him.

"Paper going well, sir?" he asked. "I often read it myself."

"It still sells," answered the proprietor, and editor and publisher, and
entire staff of _The Rationalist_.

"I like the articles you are writing on the History of Superstition.
Quite illuminating," remarked Mr. Simson.

"It's many a year, I am afraid, to the final chapter," thought their
author.

"They afford much food for reflection," thought Mr. Simson, "though I
cannot myself go as far as you do in including Christianity under that
heading."

Mary frowned at him; but Mr. Simson, eager for argument or not noticing,
blundered on:--

"Whether we accept the miraculous explanation of Christ's birth,"
continued Mr. Simson, in his best street-corner voice, "or whether, with
the great French writer whose name for the moment escapes me, we regard
Him merely as a man inspired, we must, I think, admit that His teaching
has been of help: especially to the poor."

The fanatic turned upon him so fiercely that Mr. Simson's arm
involuntarily assumed the posture of defence.

"To the poor?" the old man almost shrieked. "To the poor that he has
robbed of all power of resistance to oppression by his vile, submissive
creed! that he has drugged into passive acceptance of every evil done to
them by his false promises that their sufferings here shall win for them
some wonderful reward when they are dead. What has been his teaching to
the poor? Bo