Brother Copas, entering Paradise with a volume under his arm, found Mr. Simeon seated there alone with a manuscript and a Greek lexicon before him, and gave him good evening.
"Good evening, Brother Copas!… You have been a stranger to us for some weeks, unless I mistake?"
"You are right. These have been stirring times in politics, and for the last five or six weeks I have been helping to save my country, at the Liberal Club."
Mr. Simeon—a devoted Conservative—came as near to frowning as his gentle nature would permit.
"You disapprove, of course," continued Brother Copas easily. "Well, so—in a sense—do I. We beat you at the polls; not in Merchester—we shall never carry Merchester—though even in Merchester we put up fight enough to rattle you into a blue funk. But God help the pair of us, Mr. Simeon, if our principles are to be judged by the uses other men make of 'em! I have had enough of my fellow-Liberals to last me for some time.… Why are you studying Liddell and Scott, by the way?"
"To tell the truth," Mr. Simeon confessed, "this is my fair copy of the Master's Gaudy Sermon. I am running it through and correcting the Greek accents. I am always shaky at accents."
"Why not let me help you?" Brother Copas suggested. "Upon my word, you may trust me. I am, as nearly as possible, impeccable with Greek accents, and may surely say so without vanity, since the gift is as useless as any other of mine."
Mr. Simeon, as we know, was well aware of this.
"I should be most grateful," he confessed, in some compunction. "But I am not sure that the Master—if you will excuse me—would care to have his sermon overlooked. Strictly speaking, indeed, I ought not to have brought it from home: but with six children in a very small house—and on a warm evening like this, you understand—"
"I once kept a private school," said Brother Copas.