I said that it just was so, and I remembered the difficulty of the explanation and said no more. Then he looked up at the three spires and said: “Wondurful; isn’t it?” And I said: “Yes.” Then I said to him that we would go in, and he seemed very willing; so we went towards the Close, and as we went he talked to me about the religion of those who served the Cathedral, and asked if they were Episcopalian, or what. So this also I told him. And when he learnt that what I told him was true of all the other cathedrals, he said heartily: “Is thet so?” And he was silent for half a minute or more. We came and stood by the west front, and looked up at the height of it, and he was impressed. He wagged his head at it and said: “Wondurful, isn’t it?” And then he added: “Marvlurs how they did things in those old days!” but I told him that much of what he was looking at was new. In answer to this (for I fear that his honest mind was beginning to be disturbed by doubt), he pointed to the sculptured figures and said that they were old, as one could see by their costumes. And as I thought there might be a quarrel about it, I did not contradict; but I let him go wandering round to the south of it until he came to the figure of a knight with a moustache, gooseberry eyes, and in general a face so astoundingly modern that one did not know what to say or do when one looked at it. It was expressionless. My companion, who had not told me his name, looked long and thoughtfully at this figure, and then came back, more full of time and of the past of our race than ever; he insisted upon my coming round with him and looking at the image. He told me that we could not do better than that nowadays with all our machinery, and he asked me whether a photograph could be got of it. I told him yes, without doubt, and what was better, perhaps the sculptor had a duplicate, and that we would go and find if this were so, but he paid no attention to these words. The amount of work in the building profoundly moved this man, and he asked me why there was so much ornament, for he could clearly estimate the vast additional expense of working so much stone that might have been left plain; though I am certain, from what I gathered of his character, he would not have left any building wholly plain, not even a railway station, still less a town hall, but would have had here and there an allegorical figure as of Peace or of Commerce--the figure of an Abstract Idea. Still he was moved by such an excess of useless labour as stood before him. Not that it did not give him pleasure--it gave him great pleasure--but that he thought it enough and more than enough.