The Saving Clause

I guess I don't hold with missionaries. I've been in most corners of this globe, and I reckon that the harm they do easily outweighs the good. Stands to reason, don't it, that we can't all have the same religion, same as we can't all have the same shaped nose? So what in thunder is the good of trying to put my nose on to your face, where it won't fit? And it sort of riles me to see these good earnest people labouring and sweating to do to others what they would only describe as damned impertinence if those others tried to do it to them. Yet, as I see it, there's no reason why the others shouldn't. 'Tisn't as if any particular bunch had a complete corner in truth, is it? But there are exceptions, same as to most things. And for the past twenty years whenever I've said I don't hold with missionaries, I've always added a saving clause in my mind. Care to hear what that saving clause is? Right: mine's the same as before. It was just after the Boer War that it happened. I'd come home: got a job of sorts in London. Thought a few years of the quiet life would do me good, and an old uncle of mine wangled me into the office of a pal of his. Funny old thing my boss was, with a stomach like a balloon. And I give you my word that he was the last man in London whom you'd have expected to meet at the Empire on a Saturday night. It was sheer bad luck, though I don't suppose I could have stood that job, anyway, for long. I'd met a pal there, you see, and I suppose we'd started to hit it a bit. Anyway a darned great chucker-out came and intimated that he thought the moment had come when we'd better sample the cool night air of Leicester Square.