"Will they be arrested?" said Beth. "Don't say they'll be hanged. They don't hang people for smuggling nowadays, do they?"
"They won't be arrested or hanged if I can help it," said Jimmy. "Not that I'd care if they were. I'd be glad. Those two sneaking cowards have bolted, leaving the rest of us to take what's coming, and it'll be mighty unpleasant, unless----"
"Will they put you in prison, Jimmy?" said Mary.
"They may. I don't know, and I don't much care. It won't be for very long, anyhow. What I mind is the infernal mess Uncle Evie will be in, and your aunt, and the bishop, a thoroughly decent old boy that bishop, and all the rest of them. They'll never be able to hold up their heads again. What I mean to say is, it doesn't matter about a fellow like me. But how can Uncle Evie go on being a leading statesman and all that? How can the bishop go on preaching the way bishops do? How can your aunt go on being a vicar's wife, if once it comes out that they've all been deliberately defrauding the revenue on a large scale?"
"Do you mean to say that Aunt Agatha will have to give up being married to Uncle Timothy?" said Beth. "She never will, whatever they say or do to her."
"She'll have to," said Jimmy. "Either that or he'll have to resign the parish, unless we can pull them out of the mess they're in."
"Then let's do it," said Beth. "I'm on for anything to save Aunt Agatha and your old pet of an uncle whom I love. And the bishop. I've always liked bishops, and this one seemed particularly nice. You'll help too, Mary, won't you?"
"Of course I will. I may not be as keen on bishops as you are, Beth, but there are very few things I wouldn't do for the sake of three dozen pairs of silk stockings."
"The first question," said Jimmy, "is, can we persuade your uncle to chip in and stand by us?"
"He'd do anything for Aunt Agatha," said Beth. "He's just as fond of her as she is of him."
"I wonder would he do the sort of thing that some people might call wrong?"
"Of course he would," said Mary. "Anybody would. All really nice and exciting things are wrong, but everybody does them."
"Uncle Timothy," she said, "isn't like you, Mary, or like most other people. He has a conscience, rather a queer kind of conscience, quite different from Aunt Agatha's, though hers is pretty silly too. The way it takes her is, making her do things, for the parish and all that; whereas it works the other way round with Uncle Timothy, and won't let him do anything hardly. Queer things consciences are, aren't they?"