"I was horrified at her impiety, Miss Enistor, as any right-minded person would be."
"Of course," murmured Montrose ironically, "how dare she ask for money when she was hard up."
Mr. Sparrow took no notice of him. "I told her that God thought she required discipline and that she must not complain."
"Why should she require discipline rather than a millionaire?" asked Julian.
"She may have more original sin in her," said Mr. Sparrow, floundering in a bog and getting quite out of his depth.
"Well," said Montrose grimly, "if according to your teaching, Mr. Sparrow, we all start as brand-new souls, given a set of circumstances over which we have no control at the outset, and with the same goal of heaven or hell at the end, it seems to me that every one ought to start at scratch."
"Not at all," said the parson, doggedly illogical, "some are rich and some are poor; some are clever and some are stupid; some are ill and some are well. It is all divinely ordained."
"But so unfair," urged Julian, seeing the absurdity of the speech.
"What, sir, shall the clay say to the potter what it wants to be?"
"I really don't see why the clay shouldn't," put in Mr. Enistor, who liked to see the parson driven into a corner, "especially when the clay has nerves."