“I haven’t got any pluck,” said the curate.
“Tell that to the marines,” said Faber. “I daren’t go and say what I think or don’t think, even in the bedroom of my least orthodox patient—at least, if I do, I instantly repent it—while you go on saying what you really believe Sunday after Sunday!—How you can believe it, I don’t know, and it’s no business of mine.”
“Oh yes, it is!” returned Wingfold. “But as to the pluck, it may be a man’s duty to say in the pulpit what he would be just as wrong to say by a sick-bed.”
“That has nothing to do with the pluck! That’s all I care about.”
“It has everything to do with what you take for pluck. My pluck is only Don Worm.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“It’s Benedick’s name, in Much Ado about Nothing, for the conscience. MY pluck is nothing but my conscience.”
“It’s a damned fine thing to have anyhow, whatever name you put upon it!” said Faber.
“Excuse me if I find your epithet more amusing than apt,” said Wingfold, laughing.
“You are quite right,” said Faber. “I apologize.”