fist at them; and they rose to his mood, delighting in
little Tommy Wharton's pluck in "giving it them hot." He was always
giving it them hot, warming himself at his own fire. And then little
Tommy Wharton slipped out of his little surplice and his little cassock,
and into the Hannays' house for whiskey and soda. He could drink peg for
peg with Lawson Hannay, without turning a hair, while poor Lawson turned
many hairs, till his little wife ran in and hid the whiskey and shook her
handkerchief at the little Canon, and "shooed" him merrily away. And
Lawson, big, good-natured Lawson, would lend him more "money" to build
his church with.

So the Vicar of All Souls, who aspired to be all things to all men, was
hand in glove with the Lawson Hannays. He had occasionally been known to
provide for the tables of the poor, but he dearly loved to sit at the
tables of the rich; and he justified his predilection by the highest
example.

Anne, who knew the Canon by his spiritual reputation only, turned to him
with interest. Her eye, keen to discern these differences, saw at once
that he was a man of the people. He had the unfinished features, the
stunted form of an artisan; his body sacrificed, his admirers said, to
the energies of his mighty brain. His face was a heavy, powerful oval,
bilious-coloured, scarred with deep lines, and cleft by the wide mouth of
an orator, a mouth that had acquired the appearance of strength through
the Canon's habit of bringing his lips together with a snap at the close
of his periods. His eyes were a strange, opaque grey, but the clever
Canon made them seem almost uncomfortably penetrating by simply knitting
his eyebrows in a savage pent-house over them. They now looked forth at
Anne as if the Canon knew very well that her soul had a secret, and that
it would not long be hidden from him.

They talked about the Eliotts, for the Canon's catholicity bridged the
gulf between Thurston Square and vociferous, high-living, fashionable
Scale. He had lately succeeded (by the power of his eloquence) in winning
over Mrs. Eliott from St. Saviour's to All Souls. He hoped also to win
over Mrs. Eliott's distinguished friend. For the Canon was mortal. He had
yielded to the unspiritual seduction of filling All Souls by emptying
other men's churches. Lawson Hannay smiled on the parson's success,
hoping (he said) to see his money back again.

Money or no money, he left him a clear field with Mrs. Majendie. Ladies,
whe