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‘Oh, very well!’

‘May I ‘ave the pleasure of offering you a cup of tea, Mr Evans?’

The curate’s face brightened up.

‘Oh, thank you so much!’ And he rubbed his hands more energetically than ever.

Tea was brought in, and they drank it, talking of parish matters, Mrs Clinton discreetly trying to pump the curate. Was it really true that Mrs Palmer of No. 17 Adonis Road drank so terribly?

At last Mr Clinton came, and his wife glided out of the room, leaving the curate to convert him. There was a little pause while Mr Evans took stock of the clerk.

‘Well, Mr Clinton,’ he said finally, ‘I’ve come to talk to you about yourself…. Your wife tells me that you have adopted certain curious views on religious matters; and she wishes me to have some conversation with you about them.’

‘You are a man of God,’ replied Mr Clinton; ‘I am at your service.’

Mr Evans, on principle, objected to the use of the Deity’s name out of church, thinking it a little blasphemous, but he said nothing.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘of course, religion is a very good thing; in fact, it is the very best thing; but it must not be abused, Mr Clinton,’ and he repeated gravely, as if his interlocutor were a naughty schoolboy–‘it mustn’t be abused. Now, I want to know exactly what you views are.’

Mr Clinton smiled gently.

‘I ‘ave no views, sir. The only rule I ‘ave for guidance is this–love thy neighbour as thyself.’

‘Hum!’ murmured the curate; there was really nothing questionable in that, but he was just slightly prejudiced against a man who made such a quotation; it sounded a little priggish.

‘But your wife tells me that you’ve been going about with all sorts of queer people?’

‘I found that there was misery and un’appiness among people, and I tried to relieve it.’

‘Of course, I strongly approve of district visiting; I do a great deal of it myself; but you’ve been going about with public-house loafers and–bad women.’

‘Is it not said: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”?’

‘No doubt,’ answered Mr Evans, slightly frowning. ‘But obviously one isn’t meant to do that to such an extent as to be dismissed from one’s place.’

‘My wife ‘as posted you well up in all my private affairs.’

‘Well, I don’t think you can have done well to be sent away from your office.’

‘Is it not said: “Forsake all and follow me”?’

Decidedly this was bad form, and Mr Evans, pursing up his lips and raising his eyebrows, was silent. ‘That’s the worst of these half-educated people,’ he said to himself; ‘they get some idea in their heads which they don’t understand, and, of course, they do idiotic things….’

‘Well, to pass over all that,’ he added out loud, ‘apparently you’ve been spending your money on these people to such an extent that your wife and children are actually inconvenienced by it.’

‘I ‘ave clothed the naked,’ said Mr Clinton, looking into the curate’s eyes; ‘I ‘ave visited the sick; I ‘ave given food to ‘im that was an ‘ungered, and drink to ‘im that was athirst.’

‘Yes, yes, yes; that’s all very well, but you should always remember that charity begins at home…. I shouldn’t have anything to say to a rich man’s doing these things, but it’s positively wicked for you to do them. Don’t you understand that? And last of all, your wife tells me that you’re realising your property with the idea of giving it away.’

‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Mr Clinton.

Mr Evans’s mind was too truly pious for a wicked expletive to cross it; but a bad man expressing the curate’s feeling would have said that Mr Clinton was a damned fool.

‘Well, don’t you see that it’s a perfectly ridiculous and unheard-of thing?’ he asked emphatically.

‘”Sell all that thou ‘ast, and distribute unto the poor.” It is in the Gospel of St Luke. Do you know it?’

‘Of course I know it, but, naturally, these things aren’t to be taken quite literally.’