Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/92

 "Of course, I believe in a God," he said. "There must be Somebody bossing it all. It's the things they tell you about Him that I've never been able to swallow. Don't fit in with common sense to my thinking."

"You're not afraid?" Anthony asked him after a silence.

"Why should I be?" answered the old man. "He knows me. He ain't expecting anything wonderful. If I'm any good maybe He'll find me a job. If not"

Old Simon had crept closer. They were looking into each other's eyes.

"Wonder if there'll be any dogs?" he said. "Don't see why there shouldn't. If love and faithfulness and self-forgetfulness are going to be of any use to Him, what's wrong with you, old chap?"

He laughed. "Don't tell your aunt I said that," he cautioned Anthony. "She's worried enough about me, poor old girl, as it is."

His aunt had looked for a death-bed repentance, but the end came before she expected it, in the night.

"He wasn't really a bad man," she said, crying. "That's what made me hope, right to the end, that the Truth would be revealed to him."