my philosophy--"

"Exactly!" interrupted Mrs. Chapman, with a stately nod of the head, and
rubbing her fat hands. "Now you talk as I like to hear you. There's no
getting up in the world without money."

"I intended to make that point in my logic, and was coming to it, my
dear. You see, we have got the building and everything in it, all our
own. And we have got two or three thousand dollars, all put away for a
wet day. Property all honorably made. Heaven knows I would not have a
dollar that was not. That, my dear, is a good beginning for a good
basis. We must keep adding to it; keep the tide flowing in the channel
of success. I was thinking, my dear, of inventing a new religion."

"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Chapman, with an air of astonishment, "what an
inventive head you have got. But you have said so often that there was
too much religion in the world, and not enough of true goodness."

"Of the old kind, I meant, my dear;" resumed the little man. "What I
mean is to invent a religion that is new and novel, has something broad
and attractive in it, and that people of a curious turn of mind would
pay for enjoying. That's the kind of religion that pays, you see. And if
we could put the church on its feet again with something of that kind.
It's the propensity people have to go galloping after new things in
religion that we must study and turn to our advantage if we would be
prosperous." The little man fretted his fingers nervously through his
unkept hair, and his face assumed an air of great seriousness.

"How, my dear," enquired Mrs. Chapman, "could you put the church on its
feet with such a load of scandal on its back? Could'nt you invent