"Nothing," Edward Caspar had answered. "Only it's interesting."
"I don't believe he did."
"Did you never read Zola's Débâcle?" asked the other gently.
"Nevah!" cried the Archdeacon, on firm church-ground now. "I don't read Zolah!"
"Ah," said Edward. "Pity..."
The Archdeacon looked like a gentleman, and, to do him justice, tried hard to live up to his looks. With this end in view he had married—to his no small gratification, and that of his mother—the daughter of a Victorian Earl. In the days before he became an Archdeacon he habitually wore a top-hat, slightly battered to signify that the wearer, while an aristocrat, was not a new one. A sedulous attendant on the rich of the parish, he visited the poor by proxy; and yet by the simple process of taking off his hat with a sweep to every cottage-woman in the Moot who vouchsafed him a good-morning on his rare passages through that district, he maintained an easy reputation among the more conservative of the working-class as a Christian and a gentleman.
Archdeacon Willcocks was in fact a snob, but he was not a cad; whereas his junior curate was both. When, therefore, the Bishop made inquiries as to Alf, the Archdeacon gave the glory to his subordinate.
"Spink got hold of him," he said. "He was a dangerous Socialist, I believe."
The Bishop regarded with approval the chubby young man with the pursed mouth, wondering whether he should transfer him to the industrial East-end or the slums of Portslade.
A thorough-going man of the world, like most of his type, he was quite astute enough to see that the real enemy of the Institution he represented was the Labour Party; and that the danger from this quarter was growing, and would continue to grow.