s of time.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The new curate, meanwhile, was having, in vulgar parlance, the time of
his whole life. He was young, ritualistic, and he had a tendency
towards being lungish. Therefore his devoutness was excessive. His
rector, moreover, had a trick of preaching upon the practical issues of
the day, while he left to his assistant the driving home the points of
doctrine. And the assistant did drive them home most lustily and with
resounding whacks, until the sedate walls of old Saint Peter's echoed
with the blows, and the congregations gathered in old Saint Peter's
danced with the pain of the prickings. The mere presence of a pin is
not sufficient to produce any callousness of mind or body. Saint
Peter's had never doubted the force or the efficiency of its doctrines;
but it was at least a generation since it had been so rowelled with
their points.

One such rowelling had just been taking place when, on the Sunday
morning following the Easter holidays, Dolph Dennison dropped in to see
Reed Opdyke. As he more than half expected, he found Olive Keltridge
there ahead of him, and it was upon Olive Keltridge that, after a most
unceremonious greeting to his host, Dolph turned the fire of his
interrogation.

"Who is the expensive-looking gentleman in the bunny hood, Olive, the
one that sat back in the corner and kept tabs on Brenton's reading of
the lessons?"

Olive laughed at the undeniable accuracy of the description.

"That's the new curate, Dolph. You must have seen him before."

"Not," Dolph responded briefly. "It wouldn't be possible to forget him.
What's he for? Ornament? I must say, Saint Peter's is getting frilly in
its hoary age, and frills like that come dear."

"Not so dear as he looks," Olive reassured him. "In reality, he comes
cheap. He is just up from nervous prostration and ordered to a more
relaxing climate, so we got him at a bargain."

"Damaged goods. I see. Seen him, Opdyke? Hood and all--it's of white
bunny--he looks like the tag-end of an importer's mark-down sale, and
his idioms match the rest of him. Where'd they get him, Olive? Not your
father?"

"My father didn't get him, if that is what you mean, Dolph. Mr.
Prather, I believe it was, who recommended him."

"Prather for all the world! Just like the man; he is always on the
still hunt for something a little bit exotic. Next thing we know, we'll
be having the reverend gentleman served up to us in a novel. But why
the bun