“There are matches at your elbow, Mr. Dale—­on that shelf—­beside the flower-pot.”

“Thanks, Mr. Osborn.”

He wore a loose blue flannel coat, and Dale wondered if this was a garment that he had bought years ago to play cricket in.  Perhaps he had belonged to a University.  It was quite clear that he must have had an extremely lib’ral education to start with.  And Dale thought again what he had thought just now in the porch—­that one ought to be precious careful in dealing with a man of such natural and acquired powers.

However, the fact that Mr. Osborn was continuing his work, and yet, as he had promised, at the same time listening properly, made the interview easier and Dale more comfortable.  He recovered his self-confidence, and after puffing out a sufficient cloud of smoke, talked weightily and didactically.

“I am desirous not to exaggerate; but I would like to state that I was well impressed by my experience of your ritual—­if that is the correct term.  I seemed to find what I had not found elsewhere.  If I may speak quite openly, I would say it appeared to me there wasn’t an ounce of humbug in your service.”

“Oh, I hope not.”

“Now, in the event of a person wishing to become a member—­in short, to embrace the Baptist faith entirely, there are one or two points that I’d like to have cleared up.”

Then Dale asked a lot of questions; and the pastor, seeming to go on with the work, answered over his shoulder, or looking round for an instant only.

Dale wished to learn all about the method of receiving adults; he asked also if anything in the nature of confession or absolute submission to the priest would be required.  And the pastor said, “No, nothing of the sort.”  Such a person must of course bring a cleansed and purified heart to the ceremony, or it would be the very worst kind of humbug for him to present himself at all.  But that was a matter which concerned him and God, who reads all hearts and knows all secrets.  Mr. Osborn said it had never been the practise of Baptist ministers to insinuate themselves into the private secrets of their flocks.  They left that to the Roman Catholics.

Dale heartily commended the Baptist custom.  He said that much of his objection to religion had been caused by what he read of the Roman Catholic faith.  As a responsible man he could never bring himself to that abject submission to another man, however you sanctified and tricked out the other man; besides, no one of mature age cares to make a complete confession of his past life.  There must always be things that he could not force himself to disclose—­follies, indiscretions, perhaps the grievous mistakes which he himself wants to forget, knowing that improvement lies in determination for better conduct, and not in brooding on past failure.

Mr. Osborn looked round, and used a gentle deprecating tone.

“You speak of your objection to religion; but, Mr. Dale, you are a singularly religious man.  You are, really.”