After that Alf went often.
The curate, who had made inquiries, found that Alf had once been, according to report, "a roaring, raving Socialist and atheist!"
"Shockin the things he used to say!" his informant told him. The curate, who was all out for sensation, was thrilled. Here was a catch indeed!—If he could but bring it off!—What wouldn't the dear Bishop of Fulham say?
His prayers were answered more swiftly than he had anticipated.
In a month the Reverend Spink had led his penitent to the baptismal font.
Alf, asked if he would like any of his people to be present at the ceremony, had shaken his head.
"See where it is, sir, Mother's chapel. She'll never forgive me—not but what I'll put up with that if it's right. And dad's I don't know what. I don't know that he knows himself."
The only people Alf invited to attend were Mrs. Trupp and her daughter. They refused politely.
As Bess said to her mother with the firmness of youth, "We are on Ernie's side. Dad may forget, but we don't."
A few weeks later the Reverend Spink went to call on Alf's father.