Perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by an event
which almost thrust inconsistency upon him. A few days after he had left
the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told him that the
prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished his sentence
and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post to Ernest, who
he already knew played the organ. Ernest was at first in doubt whether
it would be right for him to assist at religious services more than he
was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure of playing the organ, and
the privileges which the post involved, made him see excellent reasons
for not riding consistency to death. Having, then, once introduced an
element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not
to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable
indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the
indifferentism from which Mr Hawke had aroused him.
By becoming organist he was saved from the treadmill, for which the
doctor had said he was unfit as yet, but which he would probably have
been put to in due course as soon as he was stronger.
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