At any rate Sir John was a pure Whig and to your pure Whig personal dignity is everything.
"So long," murmured he, "as you don't ask me to dress up and make myself a figure of fun."
The Bishop had already put the suggestion, so far as it concerned him, aside with a tolerant smile, which encouraged everything from which he, bien entendu, was omitted.
Mr. Bamberger, scanning the line of faces with a Jew's patient cunning, at length encountered the eye of Mr. Colt, who at the farther end of the high table was leaning forward to listen.
"You're my man," thought Mr. Bamberger. "Though I don't know your name and maybe you're socially no great shakes; a chaplain by your look, and High Church. You're the useful one in this gang."
He lifted his voice.
"You won't misunderstand me, Master," he said. "I named the Cathedral and the Crusades because, in Merchester, history cannot get away from the Church. It's her history that any pageant of Merchester ought to illustrate primarily—must, indeed: her past glories, some day (please God) to be revived."
"And," said Mr. Bamberger some months later, in private converse with his brother Isidore, "that did it, though I say it who shouldn't. I froze on that Colt straight; and Colt, you'll allow, was trumps."
For the moment little more was said. The company at the high table, after grace—a shorter one this time, pronounced by the Chaplain— bowed to the Brethren and followed the Master upstairs to the little room which had once served for espial-chamber, but was now curtained cosily and spread for dessert.
"By the way, Master," said the Bishop, suddenly remembering the Petition in his pocket, and laughing amicably as he dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee, "what games have you been playing in St. Hospital, that they accuse you of Romanising?"