"Oh, he's one of _them_!" cried the other. "That accounts for it. A know _them_. They were at Oxford when A was at Ruskin. They're jannock,--and so yoong with it. They think they're going to convert the Church to Christianity!" He chuckled. "In the course of history," remarked the Colonel, "many Churchmen have thought that. But the end of it's always been the same." "What's that?" asked the engineer. "That the Church has converted them." CHAPTER VIII THE CHERUB The advent of Bobby Chislehurst to Old Town made a considerable difference to Bessie Trupp. She was not at all in love with him and he only pleasantly so with her; but as she told her friend the Colonel, "He's the first curate we've ever had in Old Town you can be like that with." "Like that is good," said the Colonel. "Give me my tables. Meet it is I write it down.--It says nothing and expresses everything." Now if the clergy in Old Town with the exception of Bess's pet antipathy, the Reverend Spink, were honest men worthy of respect, as everybody admitted, they were also old-fashioned; and Bobby Chislehurst was a new and disturbing element in their midst. Shy and unassuming though he was, the views of the Cherub, as the Colonel called his cousin, when they became known, created something of a mild sensation in the citadel which had been held for Conservatism against all comers by the Archdeacon and his lady for nearly forty years. Even Mr. Pigott was shocked. "He's a Socialist!" he confided to Mr. Trupp at the Bowling Green Committee. The old Nonconformist had passed the happiest hours of a militant life in battle with the Church as represented by his neighbour, the Archdeacon, but of late it had been borne in upon him with increasing urgency that the time might come when Church and Chapel would have to join forces and present a common front against the hosts of Socialism which he feared more than ever he had done the Tory legions. But if the Church was going Socialist! ... And Mr. Chislehurst said it was... The new curate and Bess Trupp had much in common, especially Boy Scouts, their youth and the outstanding characteristic of their generation--a passionate interest and sympathy for their poorer neighbours. Both spent laborious and happy hours in the Moot, listening a great deal, learning much, even helping a little. Bess, who had known most of the dwellers in the hollow under the Kneb all her life, had of course her favourites whom she commended to the special care of Bobby on his arrival; and first of these were the young Caspars.