“That’s cards, ain’t it?” enquired Dan Ridley.

“Just so!  Harmless cards!” rejoined Bennett—­“Only you can chuck away a few thousands or so on ’em if you like!”

Mr. Netlips here pushed aside his emptied ale-glass and raised his fat head unctuously out of his stiff shirt-collar.

“Are we to understand,” he began ponderously, “that Miss Vancourt is addicted to this fashion of procrastinating the Lord’s Day?”

Bennett straightened his dapper figure suddenly.

“Now don’t you put yourself out, Mr. Netlips, don’t, that’s a good feller!” he said in sarcastically soothing tones—­“There’s no elections going on just at present—­when there is you can bring your best leg foremost, and rant away for all you’re worth!  My lady don’t gamble, if that’s what you mean,—­though she’s always with the swagger set, and likely so to remain.  But you keep up your spirits!- -your groceries ’ull be paid for all right!—­she don’t run up no bills—­so don’t you fear, cards or no cards!  And as for procrastinating the Lord’s Day, whatever that may be, I could name to you the folks what does worse than play Bridge on Sundays.  And who are they?  Why the clergymen theirselves!  And how does they do worse?  Why by tellin’ lies as fast as they can stick!  They says we’re all going to heaven if we’re good,—­and they don’t know nothing about it,—­and we’re all going to hell if we’re bad, and they don’t know nothing about that neither!  I tell you, as I told you at first, in town we’ve got beyond all that stuff—­we’re just not taking any!”

He paused, and there was a deep silence, while he drank off his second glass of ale.  The thoughts of every man present were apparently too deep for words.

“You’re a smart chap!” said Bainton at last, breaking the mystic spell and rising to take his leave—­“An’ I don’t want to argify with ye, for I’spect you’re about right in what you sez about Sunday ways in town—­but I tell ye what, young feller!—­you’ve got to ’ave a deal o’ patience an’ a deal o’ pity for they poor starveling sinners wot gits boxed up in cities an’ never ain’t got no room to look at the sky, or see the wide fields with all the daisies blowin’ open to the sun.  No wonder they’re so took up wi’ their scinetific muddlins over worms an’ microbes an’ sich-like, as to ’ave forgot what the Almighty is doin’ in the workin’ o’ the Universe,—­but it’s onny jest like poor prisiners in a cell wot walks up an’ down, up an’ down, countin’ the stones in the wall with scinetific multiplication-like, an’ ‘splainin’ to their poor lonely selves as how many stones makes a square foot, an’ so many square feet makes a square yard, an’ on they goes a-walkin’ their mis’able little round an’ countin’ their mis’able little sums, an’ all the time just outside the prison the flowers is all bloomin’ wild an’ the birds singin’, an’ the blue sky over it all with God smilin’ behind it.  That’s ’ow ’tis, Mr. Bennett!” and Bainton