asked, tapping the portfolio under Glynn’s arm.

-Examination papers, Glynn answered. I give them monthly examinations to see that they are profiting by my tuition.

He also tapped the portfolio and coughed gently and smiled.

-Tuition! said Cranly rudely. I suppose you mean the barefooted children that are taught by a bloody ape like you. God help them!

He bit off the rest of the fig and flung away the butt.

-I suffer little children to come unto me, Glynn said amiably.

-A bloody ape, Cranly repeated with emphasis, and a blasphemous bloody ape!

Temple stood up and, pushing past Cranly, addressed Glynn:

-That phrase you said now, he said, is from the new testament about suffer the children to come to me.

-Go to sleep again, Temple, said O’Keeffe.

-Very well, then, Temple continued, still addressing Glynn, and if Jesus suffered the children to come why does the church send them all to hell if they die unbaptised? Why is that?

-Were you baptised yourself, Temple? the consumptive student asked.

-But why are they sent to hell if Jesus said they were all to come? Temple said, his eyes searching in Glynn’s eyes.

Glynn coughed and said gently, holding back with difficulty the nervous titter in his voice and moving his umbrella at every word:

-And, as you remark, if it is thus I ask emphatically whence comes this thusness.

-Because the church is cruel like all old sinners, Temple said.

-Are you quite orthodox on that point, Temple? Dixon said suavely.

-Saint Augustine says that about unbaptised children going to hell, Temple answered, because he was a cruel old sinner too.

-I bow to you, Dixon said, but I had the impression that limbo existed for such cases.

-Don’t argue with him, Dixon, Cranly said brutally. Don’t talk to him or look at him. Lead him home with a sugan the way you’d lead a bleating goat.

-Limbo! Temple cried. That’s a fine invention too. Like hell.

-But with the unpleasantness left out, Dixon said.

He turned smiling to the others and said:

-I think I am voicing the opinions of all present in saying so much.

-You are, Glynn said in a firm tone. On that point Ireland is united.

He struck the ferule of his umbrella on the stone floor of the colonnade.

-Hell, Temple said. I can respect that invention of the grey spouse