“I do, indeed.”
The bishop’s face had grown grave.
“Think well, Mulliner,” he said. “Marriage is a serious affair. Do not plunge into it without due reflection. I myself am a husband, and, though singularly blessed in the possession of a devoted helpmeet, cannot but feel sometimes that a man is better off as a bachelor. Women, Mulliner, are odd.”
“True,” said Augustine.
“My own dear wife is the best of women. And, as I never weary of saying, a good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and the good under all change; lovely in youthful comeliness, lovely all her life in comeliness of heart. And yet—”
“And yet?” said Augustine.
The bishop mused for a moment. He wriggled a little with an expression of pain, and scratched himself between the shoulder-blades.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the bishop. “It is a warm and pleasant day today, is it not?”
“Exceptionally clement,” said Augustine.
“A fair, sunny day, made gracious by a temperate westerly breeze. And yet, Mulliner, if you will credit my statement, my wife insisted on my putting on my thick winter woollies this morning. Truly,” sighed the bishop, “as a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion. Proverbs 11:21.”
“Twenty-two,” corrected Augustine.
“I should have said twenty-two. They are made of thick flannel, and I have an exceptionally sensitive skin. Oblige me, my dear fellow, by rubbing me in the small of the back with the ferrule of your stick. I think it will ease the irritation.”
“But, my poor dear old bish,” said Augustine, sympathetically, “this must not be.”
The bishop shook his head ruefully.
“You would not speak so hardily, Mulliner, if you knew my wife. There is no appeal from her decrees.”
“Nonsense,” cried Augustine, cheerily. He looked through the trees to where the lady bishopess, escorted by Jane, was examining a lobelia through her lorgnette with just the right blend of cordiality and condescension. “I’ll fix that for you in a second.”
The bishop clutched at his arm.
“My boy! What are you going to do?”
“I’m just going to have a word with your wife and put the matter up to her as a reasonable woman. Thick winter woollies on a day like this! Absurd!” said Augustine. “Preposterous! I never heard such rot.”
The bishop gazed after him with a laden heart. Already he had come to love this young man like a son: and to see him charging so light-heartedly into the very jaws of destruction afflicted him with a deep and poignant sadness. He knew what his wife was like when even the highest in the land attempted to thwart her; and this brave lad was but a curate. In another moment she would be looking at him through her lorgnette: and England was littered with the shrivelled remains of curates at whom the lady bishopess had looked through her lorgnette. He had seen them wilt like salted slugs at the episcopal breakfast-table.
He held his breath. Augustine had reached the lady bishopess, and the lady bishopess was even now raising her lorgnette.
The bishop shut his eyes and turned away. And then—years afterwards, it seemed to him—a cheery voice hailed him: and, turning, he perceived Augustine bounding back through the trees.
“It’s all right, bish,” said Augustine.
“All—all right?” faltered the bishop.
“Yes. She says you can go and change into the thin cashmere.”
The bishop reeled.
“But—but—but what did you say to her? What arguments did you employ?”
“Oh, I just pointed out what a warm day it was and jollied her along a bit—”
“Jollied her along a bit!”
“And she agreed in the most friendly and cordial manner. She has asked me to call at the Palace one of these days.”
The bishop seized Augustine’s hand.
“My boy,” he said in a broken voice, “you shall do more than call at the Palace. You shall come and live at the Palace. Become my secretary, Mulliner, and name your own salary. If you intend to marry, you will require an increased stipend. Become my secretary, boy, and never leave my side. I have needed somebody like you for years.”
It was late in the afternoon when Augustine returned to his rooms, for he had been invited to lunch at the vicarage and had been the life and soul of the cheery little party.
“A letter for you, sir,” said Mrs. Wardle, obsequiously.
Augustine took the letter.
“I am sorry to say I shall be leaving you shortly, Mrs. Wardle.”
“Oh, sir! If there’s anything I can do—”
“Oh, it’s not that. The fact is, the bishop has made me his secretary, and I shall have to shift my toothbrush and spats to the Palace, you see.”
“Well, fancy that, sir! Why, you’ll be a bishop yourself one of these days.”
“Possibly,” said Augustine. “Possibly. And now let me read this.”
He opened the letter. A thoughtful frown appeared on his face as he read.
My dear Augustine,
I am writing in some haste to tell you that the impulsiveness of your aunt has led to a rather serious mistake.
She tells me that she dispatched to you yesterday by parcels post a sample bottle of my new Buck-U-Uppo, which she obtained without my knowledge from my laboratory. Had she mentioned what she was intending to do, I could have prevented a very unfortunate occurrence.
Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo is of two grades or qualities—the A and the B. The A is a mild, but strengthening, tonic designed for human invalids. The B, on the other hand, is purely for circulation in the animal kingdom, and was invented to fill a long-felt want throughout our Indian possessions.
As you are doubtless aware, the favourite pastime of the Indian Maharajahs is the hunting of the tiger of the jungle from the backs of elephants; and it has happened frequently in the past that hunts have been spoiled by the failure of the elephant to see eye to eye with its owner in the matter of what constitutes sport.
Too often elephants, on sighting the tiger, have turned and galloped home: and it
