“He started it,” said the vicar, sullenly.
“Never mind who started it.” Augustine silenced the bishop with a curt gesture as he made to speak. “Be sensible, my dear fellows. Respect the decencies of debate. Exercise a little good-humoured give-and-take. You say,” he went on, turning to the bishop, “that our good friend here has too many orphreys on his chasuble?”
“I do. And I stick to it.”
“Yes, yes, yes. But what,” said Augustine, soothingly, “are a few orphreys between friends? Reflect! You and our worthy vicar here were at school together. You are bound by the sacred ties of the old Alma Mater. With him you sported on the green. With him you shared a crib and threw inked darts in the hour supposed to be devoted to the study of French. Do these things mean nothing to you? Do these memories touch no chord?” He turned appealingly from one to the other. “Vicar! Bish!”
The vicar had moved away and was wiping his eyes. The bishop fumbled for a pocket-handkerchief. There was a silence.
“Sorry, Pieface,” said the bishop, in a choking voice.
“Shouldn’t have spoken as I did, Boko,” mumbled the vicar.
“If you want to know what I think,” said the bishop, “you are right in attributing your indisposition at the house supper to something wrong with the turkey. I recollect saying at the time that the bird should never have been served in such a condition.”
“And when you put that white mouse in the French master’s desk,” said the vicar, “you performed one of the noblest services to humanity of which there is any record. They ought to have made you a bishop on the spot.”
“Pieface!”
“Boko!”
The two men clasped hands.
“Splendid!” said Augustine. “Everything hotsy-totsy now?”
“Quite, quite,” said the vicar.
“As far as I am concerned, completely hotsy-totsy,” said the bishop. He turned to his old friend solicitously. “You will continue to wear all the orphreys you want—will you not, Pieface?”
“No, no. I see now that I was wrong. From now on, Boko, I abandon orphreys altogether.”
“But, Pieface—”
“It’s all right,” the vicar assured him. “I can take them or leave them alone.”
“Splendid fellow!” The bishop coughed to hide his emotion, and there was another silence. “I think, perhaps,” he went on, after a pause, “I should be leaving you now, my dear chap, and going in search of my wife. She is with your daughter, I believe, somewhere in the village.”
“They are coming up the drive now.”
“Ah, yes, I see them. A charming girl, your daughter.”
Augustine clapped him on the shoulder.
“Bish,” he exclaimed, “you said a mouthful. She is the dearest, sweetest girl in the whole world. And I should be glad, vicar, if you would give your consent to our immediate union. I love Jane with a good man’s fervour, and I am happy to inform you that my sentiments are returned. Assure us, therefore, of your approval, and I will go at once and have the banns put up.”
The vicar leaped as though he had been stung. Like so many vicars, he had a poor opinion of curates, and he had always regarded Augustine as rather below than above the general norm or level of the despised class.
“What!” he cried.
“A most excellent idea,” said the bishop, beaming. “A very happy notion, I call it.”
“My daughter!” The vicar seemed dazed. “My daughter marry a curate!”
“You were a curate once yourself, Pieface.”
“Yes, but not a curate like that.”
“No!” said the bishop. “You were not. Nor was I. Better for us both had we been. This young man, I would have you know, is the most outstandingly excellent young man I have ever encountered. Are you aware that scarcely an hour ago he saved me with the most consummate address from a large shaggy dog with black spots and a kink in his tail? I was sorely pressed, Pieface, when this young man came up and, with a readiness of resource and an accuracy of aim which it would be impossible to overpraise, got that dog in the short ribs with a rock and sent him flying.”
The vicar seemed to be struggling with some powerful emotion. His eyes had widened.
“A dog with black spots?”
“Very black spots. But no blacker, I fear, than the heart they hid.”
“And he really plugged him in the short ribs?”
“As far as I could see, squarely in the short ribs.”
The vicar held out his hand.
“Mulliner,” he said, “I was not aware of this. In the light of the facts which have just been drawn to my attention, I have no hesitation in saying that my objections are removed. I have had it in for that dog since the second Sunday before Septuagesima, when he pinned me by the ankle as I paced beside the river composing a sermon on Certain Alarming Manifestations of the So-called Modern Spirit. Take Jane. I give my consent freely. And may she be as happy as any girl with such a husband ought to be.”
A few more affecting words were exchanged, and then the bishop and Augustine left the house. The bishop was silent and thoughtful.
“I owe you a great deal, Mulliner,” he said at length.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Augustine. “Would you say that?”
“A very great deal. You saved me from a terrible disaster. Had you not leaped through that window at that precise juncture and intervened, I really believe I should have pasted my dear old friend Brandon in the eye. I was sorely exasperated.”
“Our good vicar can be trying at times,” agreed Augustine.
“My fist was already clenched, and I was just hauling off for the swing when you checked me. What the result would have been, had you not exhibited a tact and discretion beyond your years, I do not like to think. I might have been unfrocked.” He shivered at the thought, though the weather was mild. “I could never have shown my face at the Athenaeum again. But, tut, tut!” went on the bishop, patting Augustine on the shoulder, “let us not dwell on what might have been.
