"Which way's that then?"
"The way the money goes."
Alf was not in the least offended. Indeed he was rather pleased. He stood in his favourite position in the window with his back to his mother and cleaned his nails with a pen-knife.
"Crucified for conscience' sake," he muttered. "I dare say I'm not the first, nor I won't be the last neether."
Alf was confirmed into the church, and persecuted for it by his mother, a few weeks before his brother's return home.
CHAPTER XXVI
MR. PIGOTT
Ernie, bag in hand, and sore of heart, sauntered along to the end of Rectory Walk.
There Beech-hangar, swirling in the wind under the shoulder of the Downs that shut off Beau-nez, called to his wounded spirit.
He walked slowly along the New Road, away from the houses, across the Golf Links towards this favourite retreat of his boyhood where of old, when in trouble with his mother, he would retire.