Peter thanked him, filled and handed it back, then lit his pipe, and glanced curiously round the room as he drew on it.  “You’re pretty full up,” he said.

“Fairly,” said the other.  “There’s a Y.M.C.A. here, and I run it more or less, and Tommy likes variety.  He’s a fine chap, Tommy; don’t you think so?”

Peter hesitated a second, and the other glanced at him shrewdly.

“Perhaps you haven’t been out long enough,” he said.

“Perhaps not,” said Peter.  “Not but what I do like him.  He’s a cheerful creature for all his grousing, and has sterling good stuff in him.  But religiously I don’t get on far.  To tell you the truth, I’m awfully worried about it.”

The elder man nodded.  “I guess I know, lad,” he said.  “See here.  I’m Presbyterian and I reckon you are Anglican, but I expect we’re up against much the same sort of thing.  Don’t worry too much.  Do your job and talk straight, and the men’ll listen more than you think.”

“But I don’t think I know what to tell them,” said Peter miserably, but drawn out by the other.

Arnold smiled.  “The Prayer Book’s not much use here, eh?  But forgive me; I don’t mean to be rude.  I know what you mean.  To tell you the truth, I think this war is what we padres have been needing.  It’ll help us to find our feet.  Only—­this is honest—­if you don’t take care you may lose them.  I have to keep a tight hold of that”—­and he laid his hand on a big Bible—­“to mind my own.”

Peter did not reply for a minute.  He could not talk easily to a stranger.  But at last he said:  “Yes; but it doesn’t seem to me to fit the case.  Men are different.  Times are different.  The New Testament people took certain things for granted, and even if they disagreed, they always had a common basis with the Apostles.  Men out here seem to me to talk a different language:  you don’t know where to begin.  It seems to me that they have long ago ceased to believe in the authority of anyone or anything in religion, and now to-day they actually deny our very commonplaces.  But I don’t know how to put it,” he added lamely.

Arnold puffed silently for a little.  Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded it critically.  “God’s in the soul of every man still,” he said.  “They can still hear Him speak, and speak there.  And so must we too, Graham.”

Peter said nothing.  In a minute or so steps sounded in the passage, and Arnold looked up quickly.  “Maybe,” he said, “our ordinary life prevented us hearing God very plainly ourselves, Graham, and maybe He has sent us here for that purpose.  I hope so.  I’ve wondered lately if we haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”

Pennell pushed the door open, and looked in.  “You there, Graham?” he asked.  “Oh, I thought I’d find him here, padre; his stuff’s come.”

Peter got up.  “Excuse me, Arnold,” he said; “I must shake in.  But I’m jolly glad you said what you did, and I hope you’ll say it again, and some more.”