Hope
to see you again, Shames."
The Overseer tightened his girdle. "Thus saith the Lord," he proclaimed:
"'I will consider each by his deeds or all by the deeds of their two
apostles.'"
"Ho-ho," said Towy. "Half one moment. Think will we. Dissenters, crowd
here. Ben Lloyd, make arguments. Tricky is old Shames."
The Dissenters assembled close to Ben and Towy, and the Church people
crept near them in order to share their counsel; but the Dissenters
turned upon their enemies and bruised them with fists and Bibles and
hymn-books, and called them frogs, turks, thieves, atheists, blacks; and
there never has been heard such a tumult in any house. Alarmed that he
could not part one side from the other, the Overseer sought Satan, who
had a name for crafty dealings with disputants.
Satan was distressed. "If it was not for personal reasons," he said, "I
would let them go to Hell." He sent into the Chamber a carpenter who put
a barrier from wall to wall, and he appointed Jude in charge of the
barrier to guard that no one went under it or over it.
Then the wise men of the Dissenters continued to examine the Lord's
offer; and a thousand men declared they were holy enough to go before
God, and from the thousand five hundred were cast out, and from the five
hundred three hundred, and from the two hundred one hundred were cast
away.
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