'Maybe,' said I, funning him, 'some day he might be before you in
Heaven with his story, and what'll you do then?' 'Oh,' said he, I'll
make out a place for myself, never fear! There's places of all sorts
in it!' says he. 'I suppose it's the many mansions you're thinking
of!' said I. 'You think the poor Roman Catholics don't know their
Bibles, but I know that much!'"

"Well, Francis," said Mrs. Mangan, admiringly, "I never knew you that
you'd be without an answer, no matter what anyone'd say to you! 'Many
mansions,' says you! I declare I'd never have thought of that! Father,
wouldn't you say he answered him well!"

Father Greer, having made his point, smiled indulgently, and, as he
was deeply involved in a mouthful of tough goose, the smile, blended
with the act of mastication, made him look more than ever like a fox,
a fox in a trap, gnashing at his captors.

"I always knew the Doctor could be trusted to 'give a knave an
answer,' as Shakespeare says," he said, when the power of speech was
restored to him; "I'm often surprised at the liberty, I might almost
say the licence, that is met with in Protestants in connection with
their religion. Take the case of young Mr. Coppinger that I was
speaking of. That was a melancholy instance of evil communications
corrupting good manners. I may say that I regard with anxiety a too
great freedom, what I may call an unrestrained intercourse, between
members of the two churches--that is, indeed, if I am justified in
describing as a church that which I have heard stigmatised as 'a
fortuitous concourse of atheistic atoms'!"

Father Greer's nose came down over his upper lip, the corners of his