"Eat your meat and don't babble that stuff."
Ned shook his head.
"Don't want nothing, thank you."
"Well, hear me," said Humphrey. "You sought me of your own free will, and so you may as well listen. You've come, because you think I can do you a turn—eh?"
"I'm down on my luck, and I thought perhaps that you—anyway, if you can help, or if you can't, you might advise me. I've looked very hard and very far for a bit of work such as I could do; and I've not found it."
"The work you can do won't be easily found. Begin at the beginning. You're Godless—always have been."
"Let God alone and He'll let you alone—that's my experience," said Ned.
"Is it? Well, your experience don't reach far. You've come to the place where God's waiting for you now—waiting, and none too pleased at what you bring afore Him. You're a fool, and though we mourn for a wise man after he's dead, we mourn for a fool all the days of his life. D'you know where that comes from? Of course you don't."
"I can mend, I suppose? Anyway, I've got to be myself. Nobody can be different to their own character."
"Granted—you can't rise above your own character; but you can easily sink below it. That's what you have done, and your father helped you from the first."