“Temple! what temple?” groaned my father inwardly.

“And what are you going to do about the four black and white horses?”

“Stick to them, of course—­unless I make them six.”

“I really do not see why they might not have been horses.”

“I dare say you do not,” returned the other drily, “but they were black and white storks, and you know that as well as I do.  Still, they have caught on, and they are in the altar-piece, prancing and curvetting magnificently, so I shall trot them out.”

“Altar-piece!  Altar-piece!” again groaned my father inwardly.

He need not have groaned, for when he came to see the so-called altar-piece he found that the table above which it was placed had nothing in common with the altar in a Christian church.  It was a mere table, on which were placed two bowls full of Musical Bank coins; two cashiers, who sat on either side of it, dispensed a few of these to all comers, while there was a box in front of it wherein people deposited coin of the realm according to their will or ability.  The idea of sacrifice was not contemplated, and the position of the table, as well as the name given to it, was an instance of the way in which the Erewhonians had caught names and practices from my father, without understanding what they either were or meant.  So, again, when Professor Hanky had spoken of canonries, he had none but the vaguest idea of what a canonry is.

I may add further that as a boy my father had had his Bible well drilled into him, and never forgot it.  Hence biblical passages and expressions had been often in his mouth, as the effect of mere unconscious cerebration.  The Erewhonians had caught many of these, sometimes corrupting them so that they were hardly recognizable.  Things that he remembered having said were continually meeting him during the few days of his second visit, and it shocked him deeply to meet some gross travesty of his own words, or of words more sacred than his own, and yet to be unable to correct it.  “I wonder,” he said to me, “that no one has ever hit on this as a punishment for the damned in Hades.”

Let me now return to Professor Hanky, whom I fear that I have left too long.

“And of course,” he continued, “I shall say all sorts of pretty things about the Mayoress—­for I suppose we must not even think of her as Yram now.”

“The Mayoress,” replied Panky, “is a very dangerous woman; see how she stood out about the way in which the Sunchild had worn his clothes before they gave him the then Erewhonian dress.  Besides, she is a sceptic at heart, and so is that precious son of hers.”

“She was quite right,” said Hanky, with something of a snort.  “She brought him his dinner while he was still wearing the clothes he came in, and if men do not notice how a man wears his clothes, women do.  Besides, there are many living who saw him wear them.”

“Perhaps,” said Panky, “but we should never have talked the King over if we had not humoured him on this point.  Yram nearly wrecked us by her obstinacy.  If we had not frightened her, and if your study, Hanky, had not happened to have been burned . . . "