Hanson shook his head impatiently, longing to get away from the questioner.
“Well,” said Oliver, “I suppose by this time Gregory the Great has issued his edicts and made all the poor people rich, hasn’t he? and all the rich people poor? That seems to be the method of evening up. I don’t wonder the poor fellows like it. Should think they would.”
“You will know better about us when you have been here awhile, Mr. Ingraham.”
Oliver nodded cheerfully. “Oh, yes, of course. I am going to take notes, you see. Perhaps I’ll write it up by and by,” and he tapped the neat note-book which protruded from a pocket of his coat. “Are all the sinners saints by this time?” he added.
“Hardly.”
“Well, then, we’ll put it the other way,” said Oliver, with a peculiar significance in his high voice, “are the saints all sinners yet?” The malicious leer with which this question was accompanied seemed to turn it into a hateful insinuation, which Hanson, with all his half-suppressed discontent, resented hotly. He was about to make a hasty reply when Gregory came up and spoke to Oliver, to whom he held out his hand. His manner was as cold as could be with decent courtesy, and when Oliver had shaken his hand he passed his handkerchief over it with the impulse a man has after touching a slug or a snake.
Oliver noticed the gesture, and rubbed his long white hands together reflectively.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;