"You may growl," said Brother Copas to Brother Warboise: "but this silly Pageant is bringing us more peace than half a dozen Petitions."
Brother Warboise was, in fact, growling because for three months and more nothing had been heard of the Petition.
"You may depend," said Copas soothingly, "the Bishop put the thing away in his skirt pocket and forgot all about it. I happen to know that he must be averse to turning out his skirt pockets, for I once saw him surreptitiously smuggle away a mayonnaise sandwich there. It was at a Deanery garden party; and I, having been invited to hand the ices and look picturesque, went on looking picturesque and pretended not to see.… I ought to have told you, when you asked me to write it, that such was the invariable fate of my compositions."
Meanwhile, it certainly seemed that a truce had been called to the internal dissensions of St. Hospital. On the pageant-ground one afternoon, in the midst of a very scratchy rehearsal, Brother Copas found himself by chance at the Chaplain's side. The two had been watching in silence for a full five minutes, when he heard Mr. Colt addressing him in a tone of unusual friendliness.
"Wonderful how it seems to link us up, eh?"
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"I was thinking, just then, of the St. Hospital uniform, which you have the honour to wear. It seems—or Mr. Isidore has the knack of making it seem—the, er, foil of the whole Pageant. It outlasts all the more brilliant fashions."
"Poverty, sir, is perduring. It is in everything just because it is out of everything. We inherit time, if not the earth."
"But particularly," said Mr. Colt, "I was thinking of the corporate unity it seems to give us, and to pass on, through us, to the whole story of Merchester."
"Aye, we are always with you."