——“Very good, Barty; a good idea, for, be sure of it, you can’t get on without any hell: it is the fear of the devil that keeps the masses in submission.”
——“My dear wife, I assure you once more, that if there is a hell, it matters not to us: the House of Israel—that is to say, the British nation—will be saved to the last soul.”
——“And the others?”
——“What others?”
——“Why, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, and the rest. What will become of them? Won’t there be any of them in Paradise?”
——“A few perhaps, but in very inferior places, you may be sure.”
——“Who dies will see,” said Mrs. Goodman.
——“Just so; make yourself comfortable; calm yourself, and have no fear for the future. And now let me finish my sermon for to-morrow.”
——“Don’t talk to me of your sermons; you have enough of them, there in your cupboards, to preach from, for the rest of your days.”
——“My dear, it is a sermon of my own composition that I am preparing.”