ey never have it brought home to them what rot they talk.
They'd be no sillier than other men if they were only treated properly.
I was very calm, but I let him have it. I told him he was a mean sneak,
and that either he was the biggest fool or the biggest rogue going, and
that the mere fact of his cloth did not give him the right to do
dishonest things with other people's property, though it did save him
from the pounding he richly deserved. He tried to interrupt; indeed, he
was tooting all the time like a fog-horn, but I did not take any notice,
and I wound up by saying it was men like him who brought discredit on
the Church and on the clergy, and who made the gorge rise of decent
chaps like me. Yes," said Dick, after a pause, "when I left him he
understood, I don't say entirely, but he had a distant glimmering. It
isn't often I go on these errands of mercy, but I felt that the least I
could do was to back you up, my lord. Of course, it is in little matters
like this that lay helpers come in, who are not so hampered about their
language as I suppose the clergy are."

The Bishop tried, he tried hard, to look severe, but his mouth twitched.

"Don't thank me," said Dick. "Nothing is a trouble where you are
concerned. It was--ahem--a pleasure."

"That I can believe," said the Bishop. "Well, Dick, Providence makes use
of strange instruments--the jawbone of an ass has a certain Scriptural
prestige. I dare say you reached poor Gresley where I failed. I
certainly failed. But, if it is not too much to ask, I should regard it
as a favor another time if I might be informed beforehand what
direction your diocesan aid was about to take."

Dr. Brown, who often came to luncheon at the Palace, came in now. He
took off his leathern driving-gloves and held his hands to the fire.

"Cold," he said. "They're skating everywhere. How is Miss Gresley?"

"She knows us to-day," said Rachel, "and she is quite cheerful."

"Does the poor thing know her book is burned?"

"No. She was speaking this morning of its coming out in the spring."

The little doctor thrust out his underlip and changed the subject.

"I travelled from Pontesbury this morning," he said, "with that man who
was nearly drowned at Beaumere in the summer. I doctored him at
Wilderleigh. Tall, thin, rather a fine gentleman. I forget his name."

Dr. Brown aways spoke of men above himself in the social scale as "fine
gentlemen."

"Mr. Redman," said Miss Keane, the Bishop's