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The Strange Companion

Cathedral, to which his immediate answer was, was I sure? How could there be a cathedral in such a little town?

I said that it just was so, and I remembered the difficulty of the explanation and said no more. Then he looked up at the three spires and said: "Wondurful, isn't it? " And I said: "Yes."

Then I said to him that we would go in, and he seemed very willing; so we went towards the Close, and as we went he talked to me about the religion of those who served the Cathedral, and asked if they were Episcopalian, or what. So this also I told him. And when he learnt that what I told him was true of all the other cathedrals, he said heartily: "Is thet so?" And he was silent for half a minute or more.

We came and stood by the west front, and looked up at the height of it, and he was impressed.

He wagged his head at it and said: "Wondurful, isn't it?" And then he added: "Marvlurs how they did things in those old days!" but I told him that much of what he was looking at was new.

In answer to this (for I fear that his honest mind was beginning to be disturbed by doubt), he pointed to the sculptured figures and said that they were old, as one could see by their costumes. And as I thought there might be a quarrel about it, I did not contradict; but I let him go wandering round to the south of it until he came to the figure of a knight with a moustache, gooseberry eyes, and in

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