But chiefly did Carmichael's gorge rise against those unfortunates because of the mean way they spoke of marriage, and on this account, being a high-spirited young fellow, he said things which could hardly be defended, and of which afterwards he honestly repented.
"Yes, religion is profitable for both worlds," one of them would exhort by the junior common-room fire, "and if you doubt it, look at me; five-and-twenty shillings a week as a draper's assistant was all I had, and no chance of rising.

Now I 'm a gentleman"-- here Carmichael used to look at the uncleanly little man and snort--"and in two years I could ask any girl in religious society, and she would take me.

A minister can marry any woman, if he be evangelical.

Ah," he would conclude, with a fine strain of piety, "the Gospel is its own reward." What enraged Carmichael as he listened in the distance to these paeans of Pharisaism was the disgusting fact that the "fruits" did carry off great spoil in the marriage field, so that to a minister without culture, manners, or manliness, a middle-class family would give their pet daughter, when they would have refused her to a ten times better man fighting his way up in commerce.

If she died, then this enterprising buccaneer would achieve a second and third conquest, till in old age he would rival the patriarchs in the number of his wives and possessions.