If, when one drops upon one’s knees at night and, beginning to deceive oneself in one’s voluntary confessions, making oneself seem a fine fellow by tardy admissions of virtue and tactful omissions of wrong, if when one shows such delightful humanity in one’s prayers as this, and cannot laugh at oneself at the same time, cannot see that it is but a cheating at a game of Patience, then it might be as well not to pray at all. For the humour in which a prayer is prayed, is the humour in which a prayer will be judged, and if, seriously, one deceives oneself into believing that one is a fine fellow, just so seriously will that deceit be weighed; for there are mighty few of us who are fine fellows, which is a great pity, for so mighty few of us to know it. By the time John had reached the shrine of St. Anthony in the Duomo, by the time his English penny had rattled in the box along with all the other Italian coins, by the time the first words of his prayer were framed upon his lips, a laugh began to twinkle in his eyes; he had found his sense of humour, he had found his gift of laughter once more. It was in his own prayer. Before he could utter it, he was smiling to think how St. Anthony must be amused by the whole incident. Then, all it needed was for him to be grateful and, dropping his head in his hands, he expressed his gratitude by asking for other things. St. Mark’s is one of the few churches in the world where you can pray--one of the few churches in the world where they have not driven God out of the Temple, like a common money-changer, driven Him out by gaudy finery, by motley and tinsel. Mass at the High Altar there, is the great Passion Play it was meant to be, performed upon a stage unhung with violent colours, undecked with tawdry gems. They had no pandering fear of the God they worshipped, when they built that theatre of Christianity in the great Square of St. Mark’s. The drama of all that wonderful story has a fit setting there. No stage is lit quite like it; no tragedy is so tragic in all its awful solemnity as when they perform the Mass in the duomo of St. Mark’s. As the Host is elevated, as that sonorous bell rings out its thrilling chime and as the thousand heads sink down within two thousand hands, a spirit indeed is rushing upwards in a lightning passage to its God. Once his head was bowed, once his eyes were closed, John was lost in the contemplation of his prayer. He did not observe the party of people who came by. He raised his head, but his eyes were fixed before him towards the little shrine. He did not see one separate herself from the party, did not notice her slip away unobserved and, coming back when they had gone on, seat herself on the chair close by his side. Only when his thoughts were ended, when St. Anthony had listened to all that he had lost, to all the aching story of his heart, did he turn to find what St. Anthony had brought him. His lips trembled. He rubbed and rubbed his eyes.