“Not he,” said the radical. “He’s only shamming; he knows his master is here, and therefore has recourse to these manœuvres, but it won’t do. Come, landlord, what are you staring at? Why don’t you obey your orders? Keeping your customers waiting in this manner is not the way to increase your business.”
The landlord looked at the radical, and then at me. At last taking the jug and glass, he left the apartment, and presently returned with each filled with its respective liquor. He placed the jug with the beer before the radical, and the glass with the gin and water before the man in black, and then, with a wink to me, he sauntered out.
“Here is your health, sir,” said the man of the snuff-coloured coat, addressing himself to the man in black. “I honour you for what you said about the Church of England. Every one who speaks against the Church of England has my warm heart. Down with it, I say, and may the stones of it be used for mending the roads, as my friend William says in his Register.”
The man in black, with a courteous nod of his head, drank to the man in the snuff-coloured coat. “With respect to the steeples,” said he, “I am not altogether of your opinion: they might be turned to better account than to serve to mend the roads; they might still be used as places of worship, but not for the worship of the Church of England. I have no fault to find with
the steeples, it is the Church itself which I am compelled to arraign; but it will not stand long, the respectable part of its ministers are already leaving it. It is a bad Church, a persecuting Church.”
“Whom does it persecute?” said I. The man in black glanced at me slightly, and then replied slowly, “The Catholics.”
“And do those whom you call Catholics never persecute?” said I.
“Never,” said the man in black.
“Did you ever read ‘Fox’s Book of Martyrs?’” said I.
“He! he!” tittered the man in black, “there is not a word of truth in ‘Fox’s Book of Martyrs.’”