“What everybody believes,” the child answered.
The little man shook his head.
“Don’t you believe them,” he answered. “They don’t believe any more than I believe. They just say it because they think they’re going to get something out of it.”
The little man reached forward for the poker and gently stirred the fire.
“If they believed all they say that they believe,” he continued, “this world would be a very different place to what it is. That’s what I always tell them, and that’s what they’re never able to answer and never will be.”
He laid down the poker and turned again to the child.
“You’ll hear it all in good time, my lad,” he said. “‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’ ‘Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor.’ That’s what their God tells them. Do you see them doing it?”
The little man laughed a merry, good-tempered laugh.
“Why, old Simon has got more sense than they have.” He stooped and patted the shaggy head resting upon his knee. “He knows it wouldn’t be any good, just looking at me as though he loved me, and then not doing what I told him.”