“He is too old! He now careth no more for his children,”⁠—answered the other night-watchman.

“ Hath he then children? No one can prove it unless he himself prove it! I have long wished that he would for once prove it thoroughly.”

“Prove? As if he had ever proved anything! Proving is difficult to him; he layeth great stress on one’s believing him.”

“Ay! Ay! Belief saveth him; belief in him. That is the way with old people! So it is with us also!”⁠—

—Thus spake to each other the two old night-watchmen and light-scarers, and tooted thereupon sorrowfully on their horns: so did it happen yester-night at the garden-wall.