I did not reply at once. Clara’s words appeared to me quite irreverent, and I recoiled from the very thought that there could be any sham in nature; but what to answer her I did not know. I almost began to dislike her; for it is often incapacity for defending the faith they love which turns men into persecutors. Seeing me foiled, Charley advanced with the doubtful aid of a sophism to help me. ‘Which is the sham, Miss Clara?’ he asked. ‘That Eiger mountain there.’ ‘Ah! so I thought.’ ‘Then you are of my opinion, Mr Osborne?’ ‘You mean the mountain is shamming, don’t you--looking far off when really it is near?’ ‘Not at all. When it looked last night as if it hung right over our heads, it was shamming. See it now--far away there!’ ‘But which, then, is the sham, and which is the true? It _looked_ near yesterday, and now it _looks_ far away. Which is which?’ ‘It must have been a sham yesterday; for although it looked near, it was very dull and dim, and you could only see the sharp outline of it.’ ‘Just so I argue on the other side. The mountain must be shamming now, for although it looks so far off, it yet shows a most contradictory clearness--not only of outline but of surface.’ ‘Aha!’ thought I, ‘Miss Clara has found her match. They both know he is talking nonsense, yet she can’t answer him. What she was saying was nonsense too, but I can’t answer it either--not yet.’ I felt proud of both of them, but of Charley especially, for I had had no idea he could be so quick. ‘What ever put such an answer into your head, Charley?’ I exclaimed. ‘Oh! it’s not quite original,’ he returned. ‘I believe it was suggested by two or three lines I read in a review just before we left home. They took hold of me rather.’ He repeated half of the now well-known little poem of Shelley, headed _Passage of the Apennines_. He had forgotten the name of the writer, and it was many years before I fell in with the lines myself. ‘The Apennine in the light of day Is a mighty mountain dim and gray, Which between the earth and sky doth lay; But when night comes, a chaos dread On the dim starlight then is spread, And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.’ In the middle of it I saw Clara begin to titter, but she did not interrupt him. When he had finished, she said with a grave face, too grave for seriousness: ‘Will you repeat the third line--I think it was, Mr Osborne?’ He did so. ‘What kind of eggs did the Apennine lay, Mr Osborne?’ she asked, still perfectly serious. Charley was abashed to find she could take advantage of probably a provincialism to turn into ridicule such fine verses. Before he could recover himself, she had planted another blow’ or two.