"Second class? Why don't you go steerage, and save?"
"Oh, got to come back like a gentleman. You know. You're from New York, too, eh?"
"Yes, I'm with an art-novelty company on Twenty-eighth Street. I been wanting to get away for quite some time, too.... How are you going to travel on ten dollars?"
"Oh, work m' way. Cinch. Always land on my feet. Not on my uppers, at that. I'm only twenty-eight, but I've been on my own, like the English fellow says, since I was twelve.... Well, how about you? Traveling or going somewhere?"
"Just traveling. I'm glad we're going together, Mr. Morton. I don't think most of these cattlemen are very nice. Except for the old Jews. They seem to be fine old coots. They make you think of--oh--you know--prophets and stuff. Watch 'em, over there, making tea. I suppose the steamer grub ain't kosher. I seen one on the Joy Line saying his prayers--I suppose he was--in a kind of shawl."
"Well, well! You don't say so!"
Distinctly, Mr. Wrenn felt that he was one of the gentlemen who, in Kipling, stand at steamer rails exchanging observations on strange lands. He uttered, cosmopolitanly: "Gee! Look at that sunset. Ain't that grand!"
"Holy smoke! it sure is. I don't see how anybody could believe in religion after looking at that."
Shocked and confused at such a theory, yet excited at finding that Morton apparently had thoughts, Mr. Wrenn piped: "Honestly, I don't see that at all. I don't see how anybody could disbelieve anything after a sunset like that. Makes me believe all sorts of thing--gets me going--I imagine I'm all sorts of places--on the Nile and so on."
"Sure! That's just it. Everything's so peaceful and natural. Just is. Gives the imagination enough to do, even by itself, without having to have religion."
"Well," reflected Mr. Wrenn, "I don't hardly ever go to church. I don't believe much in all them highbrow sermons that don't come down to brass tacks--ain't got nothing to do with real folks. But just the same, I love to go up to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Why, I get real thrilled--I hope you won't think I'm trying to get high-browed, Mr. Morton."
"Why, no. Cer'nly not. I understand. Gwan."
"It gets me going when I look down the aisle at the altar and see the arches and so on. And the priests in their robes--they look so--so way up--oh, I dunno just how to say it--so kind of uplifted."
"Sure, I know. Just the esthetic end of the game. Esthetic, you know--the beauty part of it."
"Yuh, sure, that's the word. 'Sthetic, that's what it is. Yes, 'sthetic. But, just the same, it makes me feel's though I believed in all sorts of things."