"Sad, but true," agreed the Threadbare Coat. "Any burning at the stake would tend to revive faith, but the revival would be much stronger if the burning flesh savored of heresy."
"What?" shrieked the horrified Spectacles of the Student. "Is it necessary to burn human flesh in this modern age? Would it not do quite as well to set fire to a cage of black cats? Surely the burning of cats would create a stench that would smell to high heaven."
"Tut, tut," sniffed the Clerical Collar.
Then the Venerable Beard spoke up nobly. "The red hand of heresy grapples white faith by the throat. What is the use of all our theological blue laws if the black heart of atheism continues to control our yellow press?"
"Softly, softly, Brother," the Threadbare Coat made answer; "It is not charitable, neither is it wise, to bite the hand that feeds the press."
"Do not worry," replied the Vest with the Silver Horseshoes. "I never let my theological hand know what my secular hand doeth. Let us proceed to business. The burning of any heretic is good for a headline."
The Spectacles of the Student now arose in righteous indignation, pointed a finger of contempt at the Vest with the Silver Horseshoes and cried: "Do not tell me that you merely wish to burn a heretic to make news for your paper. I know why you are a fundamentalist. You have a monopoly on the oil!"
"Young man, you betray your ignorance," spake the Clerical Collar. "The church has its own oil reserves."
"But we should save the oil to pour on troubled waters," suggested the Threadbare Coat; "and that we could do if we had an obese heretic who would burn in his own fat."
The Vest with the Silver Horseshoes became self-conscious. "There is no necessity of my being the martyr," he said. "I am already known to the masses. Moreover a heretic, to burn brilliantly, must have ideas, not mere fat."