Bones confessed that he was a Wesleyan.
"Do you mean to tell me that you're a Nonconformist?" she asked incredulously.
"That's my dinky little religion, dear old Miss Hamilton," said Bones. "I'd have gone into the Church only I hadn't enough—enough——"
"Brains?" suggested Hamilton.
"Call is the word," said Bones. "I wasn't called—or if I was I was out—haw-haw! That's a rippin' little bit of persiflage, Miss Hamilton?"
"Be serious, Bones," said the girl; "you mustn't joke about things."
She put him through a cross-examination to discover the extent of his convictions. In self-defence Bones, with only the haziest idea of the doctrine he defended, summarily dismissed certain of Miss Hamilton's most precious beliefs.
"But, Bones," she persisted, "if I asked you to change——"
Bones shook his head.
"Dear old friend," he said solemnly, "there are two things I'll never do—alter the faith of my distant but happy youth, or listen to one disparagin' word about the jolliest old sister that ever——"