"Certainly I do not!"
"That'th a pity. I do."
"I believe in higher things."
"And do you live up to them?"
Lemuel gasped.
"I didn't come here to be insulted."
"No, Mithter Buthkin, and I don't go 'ome to be inthulted with them things--do you recognithe 'em?--in my letter-box. Who put 'em there? Look at 'em well! You did. Why? Because you're a tuppenny little thkunk--I leave your parenth out of it, for they're too old to know better; they're past mendin'--you're a little tuppenny thkunk who prethumes to think that your belief ith the whole and only truth, and that my belief--which my fathers and their fathers 'eld for thouthandth on thouthandth of yearth, long before London wath more than a puddle, ith--I don't know what you think it ith. You can't compre'end it, Mithter Buthkin, no, you can't!"
The old man paused and watched his victim keenly. He then burst out with speech of passion.
"You to convert uth! You to wish to make uth such Christians as yourselves--nuisances in the street--thingin', blarin', thpeakin' uncharitably of our neighbourth! To convert uth! Father Abraham! I'd rather be a persecuted Jew, stoned, starved, beaten, 'ated--as we have been 'ated, starved and stoned for thousandth of yearth--than such a Christian! Even if I 'ad to be a damned thoul burnin', rottin', stinkin' in Gehenna for ever afterwardth, I would not be such a Christian! Thit down, Mithter Buthkin!"
Lemuel hesitated, but obeyed. He hated and feared this old man of anger, whose voice had become powerful with passion. Somehow the armoury of texts seemed insufficient.