“Yes, Doctor,” he said, “but what if the animals should take to fighting? Alas, then, for the canaries and the mice, who will be worried and eaten by the dogs and the cats.”
“Which are who, or who are which?”
“Let us say that Alcock is a dog, and Fitzgerald a canary.”
“Then you, I suppose, are the mouse and I the cat? But what is your young Australian poet to be? You have left him out.”
“Oh, he will be a rabbit. You will see that he can burrow. It is the forte of Socialists, burrowing.—Now,” he proceeded, “we must go this way if we are to get to my rooms in time. And as we go, will you let me first express some tentative thoughts of mine, and then ask you a few questions about your friend Mr. Parker and yourself?”
“Ask on,” said Maddock, getting into step, “and I will do my best to answer you.”
II.
“It is about this little book of his,” Gildea said, with slow reflectiveness, “‘Religionless Religion.’ I found it interesting.”
“Indeed?” said Maddock, “As interesting as the production of your dear continental sceptics?”
“Well now,” Gildea said, in a tone that implied a certain amount of candour, “to tell, what the French call, the true truth, I was struck by several things both in it and in your reply to it. I thought that it would have been difficult to have found a more typical example of the average intelligent secular view of theological Christianity than that of our good Judge.”