Mr. Hunter stared pitifully at his host. "Tom there'll ask it," he said, his lips very dry; "he used to go to singin'-school in the church."
Mr. Glady's head was bowed waiting. "Mr. Hunter'll do it himself," he said, without moving a muscle; "his wife's mother's a class-leader in the Methodists."
Whereupon the piously connected man, escape impossible now, began to emit a low subterranean rumble, like the initial utterances of a bottle full of water when it is turned upside down. But it was music to the ear of Mr. Glady, listening in rigid reverence.
"What church do you go to, Mr. Glady?" David asked as he poured out a cup of tea, its vigour obvious. "Both sugar and cream, eh—Letitia, have we any sugar round the house?"
"There's a barrel an' a half," the servant responded promptly.
"Oh, yes, I see—fetch the half; we live awful plain, Mr. Glady. Don't go to no church, did you say? Terrible mistake—why don't you?"
"Well," his guest responded slowly, "I look at it this way: if a fellow works all week—like us toilers does—he wants to rest on Sunday. That's our rest day."
"Terrible mistake," repeated David; "two spoonfuls?—it's the workin' men that needs church the most. I was readin' in a book the other day—it was either the 'Home Physician' or the dictionary, I forget which—how the Almighty trains the larks in England to scoot up in the air an' sing right over the heads o' the toilers, as you call 'em—the fellows workin' in the fields. You see, the Almighty knows they're the kind o' people needs it most—an' they hear more of it than lords an' ladies does. An' it's them kind o' folks everywhere that needs entertainment the most; an' I don't think there's anythin' entertains you like a church, the way it gets at the muscles you don't use every day. If you go to sleep, that rests you; an' if you keep awake, it ventilates you—so you gain either way. Oh, yes, every one should go to some church," he concluded seriously.
"That's all right for rich manufacturers," broke in Mr. Hunter; "it's easy to enjoy a sermon when you're thinkin' of the five-course dinner you'll get when it's over. But when you've nothin' afore your eyes only a dish of liver—an' mebbe scorched—a sermon don't go quite so good."
"That's jest where I'm glad to have a chance to learn you somethin'," David returned with quite unwonted eagerness. It was evident he had struck a vein. "There ain't near so much difference as you fellows think. Do have some more prunes, Mr. Glady—they don't take up no room at all. As far as eatin' is concerned, anyway, there's terrible little difference. It's a caution how the Almighty's evened things up after all—that's a favourite idea o' mine," he went on quite earnestly, "the way He gives a square deal all round. In the long run, that is; you jest watch an' see if it ain't so. I ain't terrible religious, an' I ain't related to no class-leaders, but there's a hymn I'm mighty fond of—I'd give it out twicet a Sunday if I was a preacher—it has a line about 'My web o' time He wove'; an' I believe," David went on, his face quite aglow, "it's the grandest truth there is. An' I believe He puts in the dark bits where everybody thinks it's all shinin', an' the shinin' bits where everybody thinks it's all dark—an' that's the way it goes, you see."