“Is he presentable?”
“He’s a gentleman, Aunt Sophia,” cried Winnie. “And he’s as beautiful as a Greek god.”
Winnie flushed as she said this, and dropped her eyes. They were pleasant and blue like her father’s, but instead of his bold friendliness had a plaintiveness of expression which was rather charming. They seemed to appeal for confidence and for affection.
“Shall I come and address your meeting, Winnie?” asked Lord Spratte, amused at her enthusiasm. “What is it about?”
“Teetotalism!” she smiled.
“Most of the London clergy go in for that now, don’t they?” remarked Lionel. “The bishop asked me the other day whether I was an abstainer.”
“The bishop is a man of no family, Lionel,” retorted his father. “Personally I make no secret of the fact that I do not approve of teetotalism. Temperance, yes! But how can you be temperate if you abstain entirely? Corn and wine, the wheat, the barley, the vine, are ubiquitous; the corn strengthens, the wine gladdens man’s heart, as at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee.”
Lord Spratte opened his mouth to speak.
“I wish you wouldn’t continually interrupt me, Thomas,” cried the Canon, before his brother could utter a word. “He who has solemnly pledged himself to total abstinence has surrendered to a society of human and modern institution his liberty to choose. Now what is it you wished to say, Thomas?”
“I merely wanted to ask Ponsonby for more potatoes.”
“I knew it was some flippant observation,” retorted the Canon.
“The bishop suggested that total abstinence in the clergy served as an example,” said Lionel, mildly.
“As an example it has been a dismal failure. For many years I have searched for some successful results, for one man who would prove to me that, being a drunkard, he was so much impressed by the example of his clergyman, who for his sake and imitation ceased to drink his glass of beer at luncheon, his glass of port at dinner, or his glass of whisky and water at night, that he broke away from his vicious indulgence and became a sober man.”
Ponsonby stood at the Canon’s elbow, patiently waiting for the end of this harangue.
“Hock, sir?” said he, in sepulchral tones.
“Certainly, Ponsonby, certainly!” replied the Canon, so vigorously that the butler was not a little disconcerted. “What do you think of this hock, Thomas? Not bad, I flatter myself.”
He raised the glass to his nose and inhaled the pleasant odour. He drank his wine and smiled. An expression of placid satisfaction came over his face. He favoured the company with a Latin quotation:
“O quam bonum est, O quam jucundum est, Poculis fraternis gaudere.”
II
It was one of Canon Spratte’s peculiarities that he liked to read his Times before any other member of his family. He found a peculiar delight in opening it himself, and likened the perusal of a newspaper which some one else had read, to the drinking of milk from which a dishonest dairyman had skimmed the cream. Next morning, running his eye down the list of contents, he discovered that the Bishop of Barchester was dead.
“Poor Andover is no more, Sophia,” he remarked, with a decent solemnity.
He ate his kidney absently, and it was not till he passed his coffee-cup to Lady Sophia to be refilled that he made any observation.
“It’s really almost providential that the poor old man should depart this life on the very day I am to meet Lord Stonehenge at dinner. I’d better have the pair to-night, Sophia.”
“Where are you dining?”
“At the Hollingtons,” he answered. “Last time a bishopric was vacant, the Prime Minister practically assured me that I should have the next.”
“He’s probably done the same to half the school-masters in England.”
“Nonsense! Who is there that could take it? They’ve none of them half the claims that I have.”
Theodore Spratte never concealed from the world that he rated himself highly. He esteemed bashfulness a sign of bad manners, and was used to say that a man who pretended not to know his own value was a possing fool.
“It’s a ridiculous system altogether to give a bishopric to Tom Noddy because he’s taught Latin verses to a parcel of stupid school-boys. And besides, as the youngest son of the late Lord Chancellor, I think I may expect something from my country.”
“Pray pass me the toast,” said Lady Sophia.
“I’m not a vain man, but I honestly think I have the right to some recognition. As my father, the late Lord Chancellor of England, often said....”
“I wish to goodness you wouldn’t talk of him as if he were your father only, Theodore,” interrupted Lady Sophia, not without irritation. “I have just as much right to him as you.”
“I think you asked for the toast, my dear.”
Presently Canon Spratte, taking the paper with him, retired to his study. He was a man of regular habits, knowing that to acquire such is the first step to greatness, episcopal and otherwise; and after breakfast he was used to smoke his pipe, meditate, and read the Times. But this morning, somewhat agitated by the news of Bishop Andover’s demise, he took from the shelves that book which at present was his only contribution to the great literature of England. On the death of his father, laden with years and with honours, Canon Spratte had begun immediately to gather materials for a biography. This was eventually published under the title: Life and Letters of Josiah Spratte, Lord Chancellor of England. It was in two volumes, magnificently bound in calf, with the family arms, a blaze of gold, on the side.
When the Canon set about this great work he went to his sister and begged her to make notes of her recollections.
“You can help me a great deal, Sophia,” he said. “With your woman’s intelligence, you will have noticed a good many points which have escaped me. The masculine intellect takes in the important main lines, whereas women observe only the frivolous details. But I recognize that it is just these frivolous details, properly sorted, which will give life and variety to that grand career absorbed by affairs of State and the advantage of the nation.”
Lady Sophia, accustomed to these tirades, smiled dryly and said: “Shall I tell you the very first thing I remember, Theodore? I can’t have been more than six years old, but I have never forgotten it.”
“That is very interesting. Let me put it down at once.”
He took from his pocket the little book, which he carried with him always to jot down the thoughts that periodically occurred to him.
“Now, Sophia.”
“Father
