“Christian and unbeliever!” said Juba, slowly. “I suppose, when they are a-courting each other, they are confounded.” He looked hard at Agellius, as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, “If I were a Christian, I’d be so in earnest: else I’d be an honest heathen.”

Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment.

“I despise you,” said Juba; “you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you’re not made of that stuff. You’re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I despise you,” he continued, “I despise you, and the whole kit of you. What’s the difference between you and another? Your people say, ‘Earth’s a vanity, life’s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres charissimi, the time is short;’ but who love earth and life and riches and pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit.”

“It is one thing to have a conscience,” answered Agellius; “another thing to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a conscience once.”

“Conscience, conscience,” said Juba. “Yes, certainly, once I had a conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences before now—white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they are all gone, and now I have none.”

Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor.

“The truth is,” continued Juba, with the air of a teacher—“the truth is, that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which soon,” he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and stroking them, “which soon will disappear. I acted according to the feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth, or the down on my chin. It’s among the things that were.”

Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at him in a significant way, and said, slowly, “I see how it is; I have penetration enough to perceive that you don’t believe a bit more about religion than I do.”