“No,” said Paul again, serenely triumphant.
“And why not?” said Sleeman with another oath.
“Tell him, Paul. This is really great. Tell the blighter, while I have a drink.” There was a clink of glasses.
“Because you won’t repent,” said Paul, announcing a perfectly obvious and cheering fact.
“And what about yourself, you—you——”
“Steady on, Sleeman. No profanity in our theological class. Go on, Paul.”
“Oh, you won’t repent, you see, and we do. Don’t we, Daddy? O’ course we do.”
The discussion was becoming a little too much for the Colonel, greatly though he enjoyed the apparent perplexity and confusion of the outcast and unregenerate Sleeman, so he made his presence known and entered the room. He was welcomed by Gaspard with acclaim and with urgent invitations to drink, by Paul with vociferous delight, by Sleeman with a reluctant pretence of neighbourly friendliness.
Refusing a drink, the Colonel enquired, “What’s doing, Paul? Did I hear you on your native heath, the shorter Catechism? My dear Gaspard, if I am not an expert in Calvinistic theology, the fault is neither that of Paul nor of the shorter Catechism, for the last three years we have had almost daily exercises, Paul and I, in that most terrible and most remarkable book.”
“Most remarkable, I grant you,” said Gaspard, whose love for theological discussion grew with each successive glass, “but one not easily absorbed by the unschooled Sassenach mind. Sleeman here, for instance, if I repeated to him the immortal and noble phrases which register the answer to the paralysing question, ‘What is effectual calling?’ would be as hopelessly befogged as if I were reciting a bit of the Koran in its original tongue.”