"Nor am I," retorted Paul gloomily, "and anyhow what I said had nothing to do with poetry."
"Well, let's get lunch at that place by the gate. The poetry in a ham sandwich is what I want at present."
Paul returned to earth. "I could do with two," he echoed with enthusiasm.
(6)
That night, over and after a "high" Yorkshire tea, Paul was able to study Congregational ministers. A round dozen of them sat in Mr. Judson's study beneath a large engraving of the late Mr. Spurgeon in the act of preaching from the pulpit of his Tabernacle. Paul was interested in their apparently infinite variety. There was the type he knew well in the Church of England Claxted circles, the sincere, lovable, earnest, bearded sort who do not smoke and are rather silent in a general conversation. There was the hearty, bluff, unclerical sort, who do smoke and who talk a good deal and tell humorous anecdotes. One such related with great good humour how he had been knocked up one rainy night in mistake for a High Church parson, and asked to bicycle five miles to baptize a dying baby a few hours old. A young man in a corner, in a Roman collar and a frock coat, asked if he went.
"Go? Not I! D'you suppose I'd go out on a cold night to sprinkle half a dozen drops of water over a baby? I told the fellow I was sorry, but that if he was wise, he'd go home to bed, as I proposed to go. And I shut the window before he answered."
Two or three laughed, Paul could not see why. "That's like you, Joe," said Mr. Judson.
"I should have gone," said the young man in the corner gravely.
"More fool you then," retorted Joe, apparently living up to his reputation for bluff good humour.
"I do not think so," said the young man. "The ceremony may mean a great deal to the mother, and the Church ought to be human enough to cater for all. That kind of attitude gives people a wrong impression of Nonconformity."