"Just so," said Mr. Gray, and he added with a little chuckle of
enjoyment, "I like it--I like it. We need it, I assure you. There is
no question about that. Why, Winnie, not a bit of the fowl? You are
losing your appetite, child. Yes, sir, we need to be stirred up. If
there is anything I believe in, it is sincerity. But now, don't you
think, Mr. Bond, that you put it just a little grain too stiff?"

"In what way, Mr. Gray?"

"Well, now, I say the Apostles' Creed. I know it by heart. I don't
know how many hundreds of times I have said it. It says itself.
Perhaps that is why I don't always stop to think what it does say. But
I do not suppose there is a word in it that I do not believe. Now if
my mind happens to wander while I am, saying it--if it happens, mind
you--"

"Father, Julia is waiting for Mr. Bond's plate," interposed Mrs. Gray
softly from the other end of the table.

"I beg your pardon." Then, as the delinquent plate went to its
destination, "If my mind happens to wander to some little matter of
business, or something or other, while I say the Creed--_am I a
hypocrite_?"

The merchant propounded the question with a note of triumph, as though
the bold-spoken minister were rather cornered now. Mr. Bond answered
respectfully, but with subdued amusement:

"I think, Mr. Gray, that the Lord would recognize the absence of
insincere intent, but that so far as worship goes, you might as well