"And a very good thought," said Rendell. Lawrence would always rise to the religious bait. "Just the kind of thought that you would expect from a well-fed Liberal poet." Lawrence opened violently a bottle of Munich beer and drained the contents. Then he gave a vast sigh of relief, pulled out his pipe and stood expansively before the fire, exposing, unconsciously, a large gap of shirt between his waistcoat and the grey flannel trousers whose sole support lay in their tightness. "It isn't God that matters," he declared. "It's the Godites. They're worse than ever." "They've at least begun to move with the times." "Exactly," said Martin, coming in as usual to assist Lawrence. "They swallow everything new and say they meant it all the time. I don't mind good old burn-the-devil bigots, but this up-to-date Interpreting and Restatement and Revaluation and Earnest Wash, it makes me sick. Why can't they give up their tribal deity and do something sensible?" "You're so beastly crude," answered Rendell. "Oxford isn't exactly a brainless place, and it's full of religion." "It's full of a washed-out, watery, emasculate ghost of a faith," said Martin. "They daren't say what they really do mean for fear of giving the show away. So they talk about Evolution and the Unknowable and 'may be something in it.'" "The religion of the Oxford don," said Chard magnificently from his corner, "is the sickly bastard of nervousness and inertia." "I'll give you a quid to say that at the Union," said Martin. But Chard valued his career at more than a sovereign. "Aren't you men a little out of date?" interrupted Davenant. "Chivvying priests and kings was about 1870, wasn't it?" "Exactly," Rendell cried in triumph. "You've done for priests and kings. Nobody believes in them any more. They've collapsed, and by collapsing become infinitely stronger. Bradlaugh's brigade never foresaw that, when you take away nominal power, you begin to create real power. The weakest side always wins in the end." "Don't talk Chestertonian drivel," growled Lawrence. "Nobody believes it." "It's quite true. Religion is stronger than ever just because it's weaker." "The last flicker," said Martin. Then the conversation, having reached an impasse, turned of necessity and they were off once more upon matters episcopal. "I don't see why a bishop should get thousands a year while the curates are half starved," said Lawrence. "They don't spend it on themselves," retorted Rendell. "Only on palaces and motors and flummery. No, my boy, it's all bunkum. Look at the fortunes they leave." Lawrence had collected a list of episcopal fortunes which he read with glee upon every possible occasion. It was an excellent array of figures, starting well up in the hundred thousands. "Oh, chuck it," said Rendell. "We've heard all this before." But Lawrence read irrepressibly on. "What about your needle's eye now?" he roared. "Oh, don't be a child," said Rendell.