"Just so," said Dick, helping himself to mustard. "But, you see, I'm his cousin, and I thought it just as well to let him know quietly and dispassionately what I thought of him. So I told him I was not particular about my acquaintances. I knew lots of bad eggs out in Australia, half of them hatched in England, chaps who'd been shaved and tubbed gratis by Government—in fact, I'd a large visiting list, but that I drew the line at such a cad as him, and that he might remember I wasn't going to preach for him at any more of his little cold-water cures"—a smile hovered on Dick's crooked mouth—"or ever take any notice of him in future. That was what he wanted, my lord. You were too soft with him, if you'll excuse my saying so. But that sort of chap wants it giving him hot and strong. He doesn't understand anything else. He gets quite beyond himself, fizzing about on his little pocket-handkerchief of a parish, thinking he is a sort of god, because no one makes it their business to keep him in his place, and rub it into him that he is an infernal fool. That is why some clergymen jaw so, because they 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."