onsidered suitable to the position.

About ten days later I received another letter from Bastin which, as
a scrawl on the flap of the envelope informed me, he had carried for
a week in his pocket and forgotten to post. Except by inference it
returned no thanks for my intended benefits. What it did say, however,
was that he thought it wrong of me to have settled a matter of such
spiritual importance in so great a hurry, though he had observed that
rich men were nearly always selfish where their time was concerned.
Moreover, he considered that I ought first to have made inquiries as to
his present character and attainments, etc., etc.

To this epistle I replied by telegraph to the effect that I should as
soon think of making inquiries about the character of an archangel,
or that of one of his High Church saints. This telegram, he told me
afterwards, he considered unseemly and even ribald, especially as it had
given great offence to the postmaster, who was one of the sidesmen in
his church.

Thus it came about that I appointed the Rev. Basil Bastin to the
living of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me with endless
amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline. Also I appreciated
the man's blunt candour. In due course he arrived, and I confess that
after a few Sundays of experience I began to have doubts as to the
wisdom of my choice, glad as I was to see him personally. His sermons at
once bored me, and, when they did not send me to sleep, excited in me
a desire for debate. How could he be so profoundly acquainted with
mysteries before which the world had stood amazed for ages? Was there
nothing too hot or too heavy in the spiritual way for him to dismiss in
a few blundering and casual words, as he might any ordinary incident of
every-day life, I wondered? Also his idea of High Church observances was
not mine, or, I imagine, that of anybody else. But I will not attempt to
set it out.

His peculiarities, however, were easy to excuse and entirely swallowed
up by the innate goodness of his nature which soon made him beloved of
everyone in the place, for although he thought that probably most things
were sins, I never knew him to discover a sin which he considered to be
beyond the reach of forgiveness. Bastin was indeed a most charitable man
and in his way wide-minded.

The person whom I could not tolerate, however, was his wife, who, to
my fancy, more resembled a vessel, a very unattractive vessel, full of