As to Sunday museuming being an antidote to the pothouse—­no.  For the people knew the frequenting of the pothouse to be a vice; it was a temptation of Satan that often in overcoming them was the cause of their flying back to grace:  whereas museums and picture galleries were insidious attractions cloaked by the name of virtue, whereby they were allured to abandon worship.

Beauchamp flew at this young monster of unreason:  ’But the people are not worshipping; they are idling and sotting, and if you carry your despotism farther still, and shut them out of every shop on Sundays, do you suppose you promote the spirit of worship?  If you don’t revolt them you unman them, and I warn you we can’t afford to destroy what manhood remains to us in England.  Look at the facts.’

He flung the facts at Carpendike with the natural exaggeration of them which eloquence produces, rather, as a rule, to assure itself in passing of the overwhelming justice of the cause it pleads than to deceive the adversary.  Brewers’ beer and publicans’ beer, wife-beatings, the homes and the blood of the people, were matters reviewed to the confusion of Sabbatarians.

Carpendike listened with a bent head, upraised eyes, and brows wrinkling far on to his poll:  a picture of a mind entrenched beyond the potentialities of mortal assault.  He signified that he had spoken.  Indeed Beauchamp’s reply was vain to one whose argument was that he considered the people nearer to holiness in the:  indulging of an evil propensity than in satisfying a harmless curiosity and getting a recreation.  The Sabbath claimed them; if they were disobedient, Sin ultimately might scourge them back to the fold, but never if they were permitted to regard themselves as innocent in their backsliding and rebelliousness.

Such language was quite new to Beauchamp.  The parsons he had spoken to were of one voice in objecting to the pothouse.  He appealed to Carpendike’s humanity.  Carpendike smote him with a text from Scripture.

‘Devilish cold in this shop,’ muttered Palmet.

Two not flourishing little children of the emaciated Puritan burst into the shop, followed by their mother, carrying a child in her arms.  She had a sad look, upon traces of a past fairness, vaguely like a snow landscape in the thaw.  Palmet stooped to toss shillings with her young ones, that he might avoid the woman’s face.  It cramped his heart.

‘Don’t you see, Mr. Carpendike,’ said fat Mr. Oggler, ’it’s the happiness of the people we want; that’s what Captain Beauchamp works for—­their happiness; that’s the aim of life for all of us.  Look at me!  I’m as happy as the day.  I pray every night, and I go to church every Sunday, and I never know what it is to be unhappy.  The Lord has blessed me with a good digestion, healthy pious children, and a prosperous shop that’s a competency—­a modest one, but I make it satisfy me, because I know it’s the Lord’s gift.  Well, now,