Another Boy (with vexatiously retentive memory). You said afore, master, that he was God, and the gentlemen wusshupped him—was he reelly God?
Teacher (boldly, taking the bull by the horns). Yes.
Boy. And did God’s mother wusshup him too, master?
Teacher. You must not call her the mother of—[interrupts himself; recollects that it is as sectarian to deny to the Blessed Virgin the title of Mother of God as to bestow it upon her; continues]: yes, she worshipped him too; but I want you to learn about the things that he told us to do.
Another Boy (doggedly). But we wants to know fust who he be, ‘cause we ain’t to do jist what a nobody tells us; only, if that there gentlemen be God, there’s somethin’ in it, ‘cause I’ve ‘eard parson say, at old school, where I was once, that what God said was all right.
Teacher (aside). [Certainly that poor Arab has got the root of denominational education. It is, I begin to think, a failure to attempt the teaching of morality without first making manifest what that morality is based upon, and the moment you come to that you are in for denominationalism at once. (Wipes his brow and continues)—
Of course, my boy, you must know why it is right to tell the truth and do what is right, but then if I tell you God commanded all this and read to you what his Son said about it, there is no need for troubling so much about—about—
Boy (interrupting). Oh! but I likes to ax questions, and it ain’t no sort of use you telling us it’s wrong to lie—nobody at ‘ome ever told me that—if yer don’t say who said it, ‘cause I ain’t bound to mind what you say, is I?
[Teacher checks the indignant “Indeed you are” that rises to his lips, arrested by the terrible and conscientious thought whether it be not a new and strange form of denominationalism for the teacher to make his own dictum infallible in matters of morality. Would not this be to elevate into a living, personal dogma an unsectarian teacher?—a singular clash, surely. Teacher shivers at the bare idea. Soliloquizes: How can I meet this knock-down reasoning? These Arabs are so rebellious, so perverse; why must they ask so many questions, and require to know the why and wherefore of everything? (Glances at the clock.) Ah! thank my stars, the time is almost up! but this dodge won’t do every time. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the whole thing as a bad job.] (Aloud.) We have only five minutes more to-day, lads, so you must let me finish the chapter without asking any more questions.
(Boys relapse into indifferent silence. Curtain falls.)