"There's no hell," I said, "and no eternal punishment. No God would be such a fool as that."
My elder cousin cried aloud in horror, and the younger lay scared, but listening.
"Then you mean," said my eldest cousin, when at last he could bring himself to argue, "you might do just as you liked?"
"If you were cad enough," said I.
Our little voices went on interminably, and at one stage my cousin got out of bed and made his brother do likewise, and knelt in the night dimness and prayed at me. That I found trying, but I held out valiantly. "Forgive him," said my cousin, "he knows not what he sayeth."
"You can pray if you like," I said, "but if you're going to cheek me in your prayers I draw the line."
The last I remember of that great discussion was my cousin deploring the fact that he "should ever sleep in the same bed with an Infidel!"
The next day he astonished me by telling the whole business to his father. This was quite outside all my codes. Uncle Nicodemus sprang it upon me at the midday meal.
"You been sayin' queer things, George," he said abruptly. "You better mind what you're saying."
"What did he say, father?" said Mrs. Frapp.
"Things I couldn' repeat," said he.
"What things?" I asked hotly.
"Ask 'im," said my uncle, pointing with his knife to his informant, and making me realize the nature of my offence. My aunt looked at the witness. "Not?" she framed a question.
"Wuss," said my uncle. "Blarsphemy."
My aunt couldn't touch another mouthful. I was
