'Perhaps I _am_ cynical,' replied the Owl. 'The kingfisher says so. The kingfisher is an optimist, and he told me I thought it was clever to be cynical; but that was when we had a few words one day. It is from living in a belfry, doubtless, that I have contracted a habit of looking at things on the dark side; but when one has made allowance for the belfry, the world is not so bad after all. Of course animals can't be expected to know what it means; they are not social philosophers, and men say so many different things. Some think the universe is under a dual control, and some that it is altogether a blunder—a clock running down and the key lost I don't know about that, I am only a bird; but if it is a failure, it is a glorious failure. Sometimes, indeed, the theologians call life a howling wilderness; but that is in comparison with the next world. For they are immortal.' 'I am immortal too,' said Queen Mab proudly. 'So you are,' returned the Owl. 'I was forgetting. I'm not,' he added rather doubtfully. 'But I hope you will enjoy it.' 'It is my intention,' said Queen Mab. The Bishop, from whose face the look of perplexity had departed, leaving only his old serene, benevolent expression, turned as the bell chimed out the hour, and walked slowly towards the gate. The east was growing grey towards sunset, the east that lent the light wherein he lived, for he was a man of a gentle heart. Far off, in the town, a million lamps were beginning to burn. Gas lamps, and electric, and matches that struck only on the box, and not always on that. But the face of the Bishop shone with another radiance, and a lustre not of this world. CHAPTER X. THE SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF THE NIHILIST. 'Cucullus non facit monachum.' Queen Mab and the Owl were returning, rather tired, from an excursion, when a procession of the Salvation Army came across them, with drums and banners, and the General at its head, and,—they could hardly believe their eyes,—the Nihilist walking by the side of the General and weeping abundantly. The Salvation Army had brought him to a conviction of his sins, and he was wringing his hands—at least one of them; the other, as if automatically, still carried the black bag. The General, on the contrary, was highly delighted. It was not every day that he converted a Nihilist, and the thought occurred, small blame to him, that the whole history of the incident would sound remarkably well in the 'War Cry.' So it would have done, but for that unfortunate bag. 'You renounce the devil,' said the General confidently, 'and all his ways?' 'I renounce him,' said the Nihilist, still clasping the black bag fervently, in a glow of pious enthusiasm, as if it were a prayer-book. 'Then you are all right,' said the General in an encouraging tone. 'Throw away the black bag, my friend, and shout Hallelujah! Do you feel your sins forgiven?'