"He isn't at all a bad sort," responded Paul. Though guarded in form, this was intended as an encomium, just as when Paul meant that he had enjoyed himself thoroughly, he was apt to state that he had had a pretty good time. Anglo-Saxon youth is proverbially shy of enthusiasm of the lips lest it be suspected of freshness, as the current phrase is. "I wonder," he added a moment later as he stood with his back to the wood fire, straightening his sturdy shoulders against the mantel-piece, "if he really believes all the things he preaches. I'd just like to know for curiosity. I suppose he has to preach them even if he doesn't or else be fired out, and he compromises with himself for the mental reservation by the argument that if he were out of it altogether, his usefulness and occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. That's the way clergymen must have to argue nowadays, or there wouldn't be many of them left at the old stands." Though he spoke colloquially, and with an assurance which dispensed with reverence of treatment, Paul intended to express genuine interest and even sympathy. Knowing that his father's ideas on religious subjects were fundamentally liberal, perhaps he was not averse to shocking him in a mere matter of form. Mr. Howard was silent a moment, then replied: "In every walk of life it is necessary, from time to time, to sacrifice non-essentials for the sake of the essentials. As in everything else, so in religion. The world moves; opinions change. Human society cannot prosper without religion, and human society never needed its influence more than to-day. Sensible religion, of course." "All sensible men have the same religion. What is that? A sensible man never tells." Paul was quoting. He had heard his father more than once in his comments on the mysteries of life utter this Delphic observation. He laughed sweetly and fearlessly. Mr. Howard understood his son. They were good comrades. He was aware that though Paul felt free to jest at his remarks, his boy respected his intellect and would ponder what he said. "We agree about these things in the main, my dear Paul. If one were to go out on the housetops and proclaim one's scepticism concerning some of the supernatural dogmas which the mass of the people find comfort in, how would it benefit religion? The world will find out soon enough that it has been mistaken. But we can neither of us afford to forget that the security of human society is dependent on religion. One always comes back to that in the end." "It is good for the masses," said Paul, with a chuckle. "We, as the present lords of creation--captains of industry--should encourage it for the protection of our railroads, mines, and other glorious monopolies. That is one of the arguments with which the truly great salved their consciences before the French revolution."