“Your what?” asked Blair.
“My ham and eggs,” retorted the cleric.
“Perhaps you will let me wash the dishes,” suggested Blair. “I should be only too happy to assist. I feel very embarrassed at having intruded upon you at so inconvenient a time.”
“I should not dream of such a thing,” said Mrs. Kent. “I believe that Eliza is perfectly capable, but as Joe said, she is eccentric.”
“I am quite accustomed to washing dishes,” said Carter. “In fact, the Bishop always used to ask me to do it for him.”
“Dear me,” remarked Mr. Kent, “surely the Bishop has plenty of servants to help in such matters?”
Blair applied himself to the food on his plate to which he had helped himself almost unconsciously. He well knew the daring hardihood of his rival, and feared that the other might find some excuse to follow Kathleen to the kitchen. As he raised his fork to his lips, suddenly his hand halted. The dish was stuffed eggs. His mind reverted to the Public Library the evening before. Was it possible that the Goblin—?
He determined that the first thing to be done was to get Carter so firmly engaged with Mr. Kent that the wolf in cleric's clothing could not withdraw. Then perhaps he himself could frame some excuse for seeing what was going on downstairs.
“Mr. Kent,” he said, “you should draw out Mr. Carter concerning his views on amending the liturgy of the Established Church. He has some very advanced ideas on that subject which have attracted much attention at Oxford. One of his interesting suggestions is that radical churchmen should wear the clerical collar back side foremost, as a kind of symbol of their inverted opinions.”
The wretched Carter's hand flew to his neck, and he glared across the table in a very unecclesiastical manner.