ere we are, Mr. Hodder, on the stroke," he remarked. "As a
vestry, I think we're entitled to the first prize for promptness. How
about it, Everett?"

Everett Constable was silent.

"Good evening, Mr. Hodder," he said. He did not offer to shake hands,
as Mr. Plimpton had done, but sat down at the far end of the table.
He looked tired and worn; sick, the rector thought, and felt a sudden
swelling of compassion for the pompous little man whose fibre was not
as tough as that of these other condottieri: as Francis Ferguson's, for
instance, although his soft hand and pink and white face framed in the
black whiskers would seem to belie any fibre whatever.

Gordon Atterbury hemmed and hawed,--"Ah, Mr. Hodder," and seated himself
beside Mr. Constable, in a chair designed to accommodate a portly
bishop. Both of them started nervously as Asa Waring, holding his head
high, as a man should who has kept his birthright, went directly to the
rector.

"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Hodder," he said, and turning defiantly,
surveyed the room. There was an awkward silence. Mr. Plimpton edged
a little nearer. The decree might have gone forth for Mr. Hodder's
destruction, but Asa Waring was a man whose displeasure was not to be
lightly incurred.

"What's this I hear about your moving out of Hamilton Place, Mr. Waring?
You'd better come up and take the Spaulding lot, in Waverley, across
from us."

"I am an old man, Mr. Plimpton," Asa Waring replied. "I do not move as
easily as some other people in these days."

Everett Constable produced his handkerchief and rubbed his nose
violently. But Mr. Plimpton was apparently undaunted.

"I have always said," he observed, "that there was something very fine
in your sticking to that neighbourhood after your friends had gone.
Here's Phil!"

Phil Goodrich looked positively belligerent, and as he took his stand
on the other side of Hodder his father-in-law smiled at him grimly. Mr.
Goodrich took hold of the rector's arm.

"I missed one or two meetings last spring, Mr. Hodder," he said, "but
I'm going to be on hand after this. My father, I believe, never missed
a vestry meeting in his life. Perhaps that was because they used to hold
most of 'em at his house."

"And serve port and cigars, I'm told," Mr. Plimpton put in.

"That was an inducement, Wallis, I'll admit," answered Phil. "But there
are even greater inducements now."

In view of Phil Goodrich's well-known liking for a fight, this was too