"I will say this for dad. He is broad."
Mr. Trupp heard of his chauffeur's conversion.
"You're church then now, Alf," he said.
"Yes, sir," replied the other with the curious naïveté of blunted susceptibilities. "More classier. See, I'm getting on now."
And Alf did not stop at baptism.
He was thorough in religious as in secular affairs.
Next spring, after a careful preparation by the Reverend Spink, he was confirmed by the Bishop and afterwards admitted a member of the C.E.M.S.
After the ceremony, the Bishop inquired of the Rector, in the vestry, who the young man with the immense head might be.
Archdeacon Willcocks always wore a little white imperial in reverent imitation of his master, Louis Napoleon. His cult of the Third Emperor was perhaps the most genuine thing about him, and had endured for fifty years. But for a stern no-nonsense father he would have deserted Cambridge in '70 to fight for a cause already lost. And he had never forgiven the scholar at his gate who had told him that his favourite had painted his face before Sedan.
"What if he did?" he had asked sourly.