The Polleys’ standard was very little above that of the most rudimentary Christians, whether in high places, in courts and alleys, or in the bush and the jungle. The Polleys would do no murder, would not pick or steal—unless in those adaptations and adulterations of groceries, which had become part of a wide-spread system, with which all trades complied, and which nobody, save a fanatic, dreamt of defining as stealing, would prove chaste maids and matrons, would not literally fall down and worship golden images, and for anything farther would regularly attend chapel—of which the heads of the house were members, and would contribute liberally and with great _esprit de corps_ to the minister’s salary. It did not strike Oliver that the Polleys were much exposed to the temptation to break those commandments which they respected, and for the rest, with regard to the grand spiritual lives beyond, these were simply ignored and uncomprehended. Oliver feared there was a more impassable miserable chasm between the Polleys’ mode of existence and all that belongs to a higher life, than even the ghastly gulf which cuts off the outcast in his crimes and wretchedness from purity and peace, just as it was said of old that the publicans and harlots were nearer the kingdom of heaven than their extremely respectable, outwardly moral, nay, ostentatiously religious brethren. To do the Polleys justice, they made no great barren profession of religion; they contented themselves with being by inheritance and social politics chapel people, and despising the members of a state and priest-ridden church. Oliver, in his arguments with Fan, had given all honour to the essential virtues of his class; now it pained him intensely to be forced to recognise wherein it fell short, even in precedent and tradition, not to say in word and deed, of the standards and practices of the more highly cultured and better educated classes. Certainly truth was not confined to any rank, and flagrant deception was confessedly committed by ladies and gentlemen. But these ladies and gentlemen were not respectable members of their class and, unless in outrageous instances, counted falsehood brought home to them worldly dishonour, and concealed their lapses from truth with all their might. But a certain amount of lying did not involve the same disgrace when it came to light in Oliver’s class. Jack Dadd was singularly obtuse in perceiving that the twists and turns which he gave to his words and actions, in order to serve himself, and of which he actually boasted to Oliver, in the sense of what some Americans would call ‘smart practice’ or as capital jokes, were neither more nor less than cunningly veiled lies. As for the Polley girls, they indulged with the utmost freedom in wild exaggerations, horribly prejudiced statements, and barefaced fibbing when it suited their purpose, until Oliver hung his head and almost groaned aloud.