"You feel that, do you?" said Mrs. Toller, much gratified. "Of course we think so; but church people are usually so bigoted. I'm sure it's a great pleasure to meet a member of the Establishment who is so broad-minded."
Dizzy felt that he had completely retrieved his error, and proceeded to amplify his ideas.
"I think it's such rot being narrow-minded, don't you know," he said. "Look at the Buddhists. They're just as good as we are. I knew a fellow once who became one. He was fond of a good glass of wine. He had to knock that off, and become a teetotaller. He liked shooting, but he had to give it up, because he said he couldn't take life—he never had taken much before, but he used to hit 'em sometimes by mistake, and he didn't want to run any risks. Of course, he didn't eat meat. Then he hadn't been married very long, and there was a baby he was very fond of. He began to bring that up as a Buddhist too, and fed it on apples and filbert nuts. Don't know what his wife was doing all the time, but it died in a month. He didn't care. He just went on. Now, that's what I call religion, you know, and I should admire that fellow just as much if he were a Mormon or whatever he was. Wouldn't you?"
Mrs. Toller was not prepared to go quite so far as that, but she went part of the way, and went very amiably.
"I suppose you have never heard my husband preach, have you, Mr. Stubbs?" she asked.
"No, I haven't," said Dizzy. "And it's a funny thing, because I've been in London a good deal. It's the people who come up from the country who see and hear everything that's going on. Now, you wouldn't credit it, but I've actually never been to the Zoo."
Mrs. Toller did not quite see the connection of ideas, but her amiability did not decrease.
"He preached a very fine sermon last Sunday," she said, "on 'The Municipal Duties of an Enlightened Electorate.' The papers were full of it. The Daily Chronicle said it was 'an epoch-making sermon.'"
"I can quite believe that," said Dizzy. "If a man talks sense in the pulpit people will listen to him. If he talks nonsense they won't."
"That is so true," said Mrs. Toller, and felt quite sorry when the time came for the ladies to leave the table, for Dizzy had by this time completely wiped out the memory of his little slip.