—­Good?  Yes.  It is a good evening.

The squat student looked at him seriously and shook his umbrella gently and reprovingly.

—­I can see, he said, that you are about to make obvious remarks.

—­Um, Cranly answered, holding out what remained of the half chewed fig and jerking it towards the squat student’s mouth in sign that he should eat.

The squat student did not eat it but, indulging his special humour, said gravely, still tittering and prodding his phrase with his umbrella: 

—­Do you intend that... ?

He broke off, pointed bluntly to the munched pulp of the fig, and said loudly: 

—­I allude to that.

—­Um, Cranly said as before.

—­Do you intend that now, the squat student said, as ipso facto or, let us say, as so to speak?

Dixon turned aside from his group, saying: 

—­Goggins was waiting for you, Glynn.  He has gone round to the Adelphi to look for you and Moynihan.  What have you there? he asked, tapping the portfolio under Glynn’s arm.

—­Examination papers, Glynn answered.  I give them monthly examinations to see that they are profiting by my tuition.

He also tapped the portfolio and coughed gently and smiled.

—­Tuition! said Cranly rudely.  I suppose you mean the barefooted children that are taught by a bloody ape like you.  God help them!

He bit off the rest of the fig and flung away the butt.

—­I suffer little children to come unto me, Glynn said amiably.

—­A bloody ape, Cranly repeated with emphasis, and a blasphemous bloody ape!

Temple stood up and, pushing past Cranly, addressed Glynn: 

—­That phrase you said now, he said, is from the new testament about suffer the children to come to me.

—­Go to sleep again, Temple, said O’Keeffe.

—­Very well, then, Temple continued, still addressing Glynn, and if Jesus suffered the children to come why does the church send them all to hell if they die unbaptized?  Why is that?

—­Were you baptized yourself, Temple? the consumptive student asked.

—­But why are they sent to hell if Jesus said they were all to come? 
Temple said, his eyes searching Glynn’s eyes.

Glynn coughed and said gently, holding back with difficulty the nervous titter in his voice and moving his umbrella at every word: 

—­And, as you remark, if it is thus, I ask emphatically whence comes this thusness.

—­Because the church is cruel like all old sinners, Temple said.

—­Are you quite orthodox on that point, Temple?  Dixon said suavely.

—­Saint Augustine says that about unbaptized children going to hell, Temple answered, because he was a cruel old sinner too.

—­I bow to you, Dixon said, but I had the impression that limbo existed for such cases.

—­Don’t argue with him, Dixon, Cranly said brutally.  Don’t talk to him or look at him.  Lead him home with a sugan the way you’d lead a bleating goat.