looking as though
he were thinking about his friend the dean, but who had in reality
been thinking about Mr. Slope.

"What is the next dean to have, twelve or fifteen?"

"Twelve," said the archdeacon authoritatively, thereby putting an end
at once to all doubt and dispute among his subordinates as far as
that subject was concerned.

"Well, I certainly thought it was fifteen," said the minor canon.

"Pooh!" said the burly chancellor. At this moment the door opened
and in came Dr. Fillgrave.

"How is he?" "Is he conscious?" "Can he speak?" "I hope not dead?"
"No worse news, Doctor, I trust?" "I hope, I trust, something
better, Doctor?" said half a dozen voices all at once, each in a tone
of extremest anxiety. It was pleasant to see how popular the good
old dean was among his clergy.

"No change, gentlemen; not the slightest change. But a telegraphic
message has arrived--Sir Omicron Pie will be here by the 9.15 P.M.
train. If any man can do anything, Sir Omicron Pie will do it. But
all that skill can do has been done."

"We are sure of that, Dr. Fillgrave," said the archdeacon; "we are
quite sure of that. But yet you know--"

"Oh, quite right," said the doctor, "quite right--I should have
done just the same--I advised it at once. I said to Rerechild at
once that with such a life and such a man, Sir Omicron should be
summoned--of course I knew expense was nothing--so distinguished, you
know, and so popular. Nevertheless, all that human skill can do has
been done."

Just at this period Mrs. Grantly's carriage drove into the close, and
the archdeacon went down to confirm the news which she had heard
before.

By the 9.15 P.M. train Sir Omicron Pie did arrive. And in the course
of the night a sort of consciousness returned to the poor old dean.
Whether this was due to Sir Omicron Pie is a question on which it may
be well not to offer an opinion. Dr. Fillgrave was very clear in his
own mind, but Sir Omicron himself is thought to have differed from
that learned doctor. At any rate Sir Omicron expressed an opinion
that the dean had yet some days to live.

For the eight or ten next days, accordingly, the poor dean remained
in the same state, half-conscious and half-comatose; and the
attendant clergy began to think that no new appointment would be
necessary for some few months to come.

CHAPTER XXXII

A New Candidate for Ecclesiastical Honours

The dean's illness occasioned much mental turmoil in other pl