“I often wondered what it was,” said George.
“Ssh!” said the man in black soothingly. “See! I will tell you. God made the world in six days and rested the seventh day....”
“It took me nearly six days to dig my father’s grave, and then I was very tired.”
“Ssh! Ssh! Listen.... God made the world in six days, and last of all he made man and set him to live in his nakedness and innocence by the sweat of his brow. But man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and became acquainted with original sin in the form of a serpent, and his descendants were born, lived and died in wickedness and were reduced to so terrible a plight that God in His mercy sent His son to point the way to salvation. God’s son was crucified by the Jews, was wedded to the Church, and, leaving His bride to carry His name all over the world and bring lost sheep home to the fold, ascended into Heaven. But first He descended into Hell to show that the soul might be saved even after damnation, and He rose again the third day. His Church, after many vicissitudes, reached the faithful people of Fatland, which for all it is a little island off the continent of Europe, has created the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. The Fattish people have been favoured with the only true Church, whose officers and appointed ministers are deacons, priests, rural deans, prebendaries, canons, archdeacons, deans, bishops, archbishops. I am a Bishop.”
“All that,” said George, “is in Tittiker.”
And he recited the names and salaries of six dioceses, but when he came to the seventh the Bishop blushed and bade him forbear.
“That,” he said, “is my diocese.” And he swelled out and looked down his nose and made George feel very uncomfortable, so that to bridge the difficulty he went back to the Bishop’s story.
“I like that,” he said. “And Hell is such a good word. I never heard it before.”
“Hell,” replied the Bishop, “is the place of damnation.”
“Ah! my father used to say ‘damnation.’”