Ralph Bastin noticed that the eyes of the boy flitted from his face to the placard.
“Know what that means, Charley?” Bastin asked.
“Yus, sir, leastways, I knows what Mr. Hammond means by it! E sez that Jesus Christ’s comin’ back, an’ goin’ to take all the real Christians out ’er the world, an’ nobody wont see ’em go, nor nothink. I ’eard Mr. Hammond ’splainin’ it all to a gent, t’other day.”
Curious to know if the boy himself had thought seriously at all of the matter, Bastin said:—
“What do you think of it, Charley?”
“Wal, it’s like this, sir, I aint been to no Sunday School since I wus quite a young ’un, ’bout eight perhaps. An’ I never goes to no Church nor Chapel, cos why? Why ’cos Sunday’s the only day—’cepts my ’olidays—when I gits any chance fur any rickreation or fresh hair. So I aint up much in ’ligious things. But my sister, Lulu, she walks out wi’ a chap as teaches in a Sunday School—leastways, he oosed to afore he took up wi’ our Lulu, but now ’e wants ’is Sunday School time fur spoonying, an’ ’e can spoon, sir, there’s no error—well, knowin’ as ’e oosed to do summat at ’ligion, I ups an’ arsks ’im about what Mr. Hammond said, about that takin’ away business, an ’e (Jimmy Doubleyou, Lulu’s chap, I mean, sir,) larfed, an’ said, “Don’t yer b’lieve any sich rot! D’yer think Gawd ’ud go an’ kidnap all ’Is people like that?”[1]
[1] At a Bible-Reading in Malvern in the house of one of God’s choicest saints, Miss Ann Boobbyer, where the precious truth of “The Rapture” was being unfolded, a minister present, who was much used of God, as an evangelist, started up, and cried,
“What! My Lord coming to Kidnap all His people? Never! Never! I’ll not believe that!”
Ralph Bastin would have smiled, at any other time, at this curious reply. But, to-night, his soul was too sobered. Gathering up the sheets of M.S.’s, he clipped them together, stamped them with Hammond’s mechanical imprimatur, and handed the sheaf to the lad, giving him instructions to deliver them in the Composing Room.