Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/30

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He laid down the poker and turned again to the child.

"You'll hear it all in good time, my lad," he said. "'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.' 'Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor.' That's what their God tells them. Do you see them doing it?"

The little man laughed a merry, good-tempered laugh.

"Why, old Simon has got more sense than they have." He stooped and patted the shaggy head resting upon his knee. "He knows it wouldn't be any good, just looking at me as though he loved me, and then not doing what I told him."

He refilled his pipe and lighted it.

"I'll believe," he added, "when I see them believing."

Anthony John liked visiting the tumble-down cottage in Moor End Lane. His mother was nervous of the consequences. But Mrs. Plumberry's view was that those who talked the loudest are not always the most dangerous.

"The little man's got plenty of horse sense," so Mrs. Plumberry argued, "and what Emma Newt don't know about heaven and how to get there, isn't worth trying to find out, so far as I can judge. Be-