'Oh, a fellow must do something. As for wool and sheep, you shear your flocks and ship the wool off. The sheep are turned into the paddocks and begin to grow their next clip, and the London market goes up or down a few farthings in the pound. It's all as slow as a christening.'
'Were you ever at a christening?'
'Yes, I was, worse luck! and stood godfather, too!'
'You a godfather? Oh, Ted, this is too ridiculous!'
'Well, I thought it meant just to give the little beggar a silver pot and a five-pound-note now and then. But it appears you tell the most barefaced crammers about renouncing the devil and all his work. It seems to me the moment you have anything to do with the Church you have to tell lies till you're black in the face.'
'And who is the happy babe that may be left to your spiritual guidance?'
'Why, Henrietta's last baby. She's John Morton's wife, you know. Aren't we somehow related through the Mortons? You see, my sister is married to John Morton, and your brother Claude is married to Helen Morton, John's sister. Now, what relation am I to you?'
'Oh, the relation that should sit a little further away. We always come back to talking of ourselves.'
'Well, there's nothing else half so interesting. By the way, I was coming part of the way from Melbourne with Dick Emberly, and he said your brother Cuthbert was going to take charge of a congregation in one of the Melbourne suburbs. I didn't know he was a full-fledged parson.'
'Yes, he was ordained three months ago. He is going to take a congregation at Hawthorne for some months for a clergyman who has fallen ill.'