‘Honestly, Home, I don’t know whether it isn’t the biggest of all big humbugs.’
‘Oh, but—Osborne!—it ain’t the thing, you know, to talk like that of a profession adopted by so many great men fit to honour any profession,’ returned Home, who was not one of the brightest of mortals, and was jealous for the profession just in as much as it was destined for his own.
‘Either the profession honours the men, or the men dishonour themselves,’ said Charley. ‘I believe it claims to have been founded by a man called Jesus Christ, if such a man ever existed except in the fancy of his priesthood.’
‘Well, really,’ expostulated Home, looking, I must say, considerably shocked, ‘I shouldn’t have expected that from the son of a clergyman!’
‘I couldn’t help my father. I wasn’t consulted,’ said Charley, with an uncomfortable grin. ‘But, at any rate, my father fancies he believes all the story. I fancy I don’t.’
‘Then you’re an infidel, Osborne.’
‘Perhaps. Do you think that so very horrible?’
‘Yes, I do. Tom Paine, and all the rest of them, you know!’
‘Well, Home, I’ll tell you one thing I think worse than being an infidel.’
‘What is that?’