“Why, he has very queer ideas,” Philip went on, slightly hesitating; for he shared the common vulgar inability to phrase exposition of a certain class of subjects in any but the crudest and ugliest phraseology.  “He seems to think, don’t you know, the recognised forms of vice—­well, what all young men do—­you know what I mean—­Of course it’s not right, but still they do them—­” The Dean nodded a cautious acquiescence.  “He thinks they’re horribly wrong and distressing; but he makes nothing at all of the virtue of decent girls and the peace of families.”

“If I found a man preaching that sort of doctrine to my wife or my daughters,” Monteith said savagely, “I know what I’d do—­I’d put a bullet through him.”

“And quite right, too,” the General murmured approvingly.

Professional considerations made the Dean refrain from endorsing this open expression of murderous sentiment in its fullest form; a clergyman ought always to keep up some decent semblance of respect for the Gospel and the Ten Commandments—­or, at least, the greater part of them.  So he placed the tips of his fingers and thumbs together in the usual deliberative clerical way, gazed blankly through the gap, and answered with mild and perfunctory disapprobation:  “A bullet would perhaps be an unnecessarily severe form of punishment to mete out; but I confess I could excuse the man who was so far carried away by his righteous indignation as to duck the fellow in the nearest horse-pond.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Philip replied, with an outburst of unwonted courage and originality; for he was beginning to like, and he had always from the first respected, Bertram.  “There’s something about the man that makes me feel—­even when I differ from him most—­that he believes it all, and is thoroughly in earnest.  I dare say I’m wrong, but I always have a notion he’s a better man than me, in spite of all his nonsense,—­higher and clearer and differently constituted,—­and that if only I could climb to just where he has got, perhaps I should see things in the same light that he does.”

It was a wonderful speech for Philip—­a speech above himself; but, all the same, by a fetch of inspiration he actually made it.  Intercourse with Bertram had profoundly impressed his feeble nature.  But the Dean shook his head.

“A very undesirable young man for you to see too much of, I’m sure, Mr. Christy,” he said, with marked disapprobation.  For, in the Dean’s opinion, it was a most dangerous thing for a man to think, especially when he’s young; thinking is, of course, so likely to unsettle him!

The General, on the other hand, nodded his stern grey head once or twice reflectively.

“He’s a remarkable young fellow,” he said, after a pause; “a most remarkable young fellow.  As I said before, he somehow fascinates me.  I’d immensely like to put that young fellow into a smart hussar uniform, mount him on a good charger of the Punjaub breed, and send him helter-skelter, pull-devil, pull-baker, among my old friends the Duranis on the North-West frontier.”