“It doesn't seem obvious, does it?” said he. “But it so happened that the noblest traditions of the Corps of Sappers was maintained by the General at Gib, in my day. He was mad, married, and a Methodist. He had been an intimate friend and comrade of Gordon, and he invited subscriptions from all the garrison for the Palestine Exploration Fund. He gave monthly lectures on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and at every recurring Feast of Tabernacles he had the elaborate trellis that compassed about his house, hung with branches of Mosaic trees. That's the connection—as easily obvious as the origin of sin.”
“Just about the same,” said I. “Your chain of sign-posts is complete: Treillage—General—Gibraltar—Gordon—Gospel. That is how you are irresistibly drawn to think of the Bible when you see a clematis climbing up a trellis.”
“My dear,” said Dorothy, “you know that I don't approve of any attempt at jesting on the subject of the Bible.”
“I wasn't jesting—only alliterative,” said I. “Surely alliteration is not jocular.”
“It's on the border,” she replied with a nod.
“The Bible is all right if you are only content not to take it too seriously, my dear lady,” said Friswell. “It does not discourage simple humour—on the contrary, it contains many examples of the Oriental idea of fun.”
“Oh, Mr. Friswell! You will be saying next that it is full of puns,” said Dorothy.