The Squire laughed, with a rattling of loose teeth on his pipe-stem. “Why, he didn't fail according to the Little Flock; it was only the unbelievers that disbelieved in the miracles. Even those that went with him Over-the-Mountains to see the New Jerusalem come down got to having seen it as time went on, though some had their doubts when they first came back. Before they died, they'd all seen him go up in a chariot of fire with two black horses and no driver. Nobody but those two purblind ignorant boys that tried to keep him from drowning, when he fell into the river, could be got to say that the heavenly city didn't come down and suck him up. Why, seven or eight years after he left there was a preacher who was one of his followers came back here, and preached in the Dylks Temple--the old Temple burned down, long ago and was never rebuilt--preached the divinity of Dylks, and said there was no true religion that didn't recognize him as God. As for Christianity, he said it was just a hotch-potch of Judaism and heathenism. _He_ saw the Good Old Man go right up into heaven, and said he was going to come back to earth before long and set up his kingdom here. He's never done it, and that slick preacher never came back, either, after the first. He was very well dressed and looked as if he had been living on the fat of the land, somewhere, among the faithful Over-the-Mountains, I reckon. Knew where the fried chickens roosted. Excuse me, mother. She's heard that joke before,” he explained to their guest. “I've heard it too often to mind it,” Mrs. Braile mocked back. “Well, it seems to be new to our friend here.” Mr. Mandeville was laughing, but he controlled himself to ask, “And had the fellow no progressive doctrine, no steps of belief, no logical formulation of his claims? He couldn't have been merely a dunder-headed, impudent charlatan, who expected to convince by the miracles he didn't do?”