“I thought,” said Jones, aside, “this no preaching was too good news to be true.”
“Why,” asked Edmund, aside also, for Jones sat next to him, “is Mr. Barns’s preaching so very bad?”
“No—yes—I don’t know, faith!” answered Jones.
“Have you never heard Mr. Barns, then?” again asked Edmund.
“Oh, a thousand times!—That is—but you see, I never listen to prosing: it’s a bad sort of thing, I think. In short, I generally box the compass, or something of the sort, to amuse myself. It’s the best way, in my opinion,” he added, “never to think at all!”
“There you are quite wrong, sir,” observed Mr. Barns, catching the last words as he wiped his mouth, having finished his broil; “for spiritual food is as needful to the soul, as our common nutriment is to the body: and inasmuch as that body thrives best, which is best nurtured, so will that soul, which is best instructed!”
“That argument, from Mr. Barns, is certainly conclusive,” observed Mr. White, the thin gentleman.
“White,” whispered Jones to Edmund, “thin as he is, eats more than Barns does!”