“Yes, isn’t it wonderful to think they had none of our machines and things, and yet made those enormous statues and gates and things?” said Val.
“Well for us, indeed, that they did so, my child. Every fresh excavation proves to be a new link with the past.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Clover.
“Yes, all the new things they dig up seem to make a fresh link with those old Roman days,” echoed Val faithfully.
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Clover.
“If any of you young people followed the accounts of the recent Egyptian excavations—Valeria, I think you are our keenest antiquarian—were you not struck by the extraordinary confirmation of Scripture narrative afforded by each fresh discovery?”
This time Mr. Clover only said “Indeed?” and Valeria repeated:
“Yes, it all carried out the things one reads in the Bible, didn’t it?”
“We required no such confirmation, certainly, but it comes to one as a fresh joy, and brings these things home with full force.”
And Mr. Clover, with what Quentillian perversely chose to regard as misplaced ingenuity, once more found a variation of his formula, and remarked, “Indeed, yes.”