"My dear Baxter," put in the prelate, "you surely do not regret the old-fashioned English hospitality that you and your excellent wife have been practicing?"
"Well," drawled Hiram, "if old-fashioned English hospitality consists in bein' worked in every conceivable way by a lot of impecunious third cousins that never did a day's work in their lives, then I say it's time old-fashioned English hospitality got inoculated with some new-fashioned American common sense. Why, with Lionel Fitz Brown, my wife's third cousin, and Kate Clendennin, the Countess Kate, and the two Merles and various others, my house is about as much like a home as a Narragansett hotel. Now take Merle."
"Horatio Merle?" interjected the bishop. "You don't mean——"
"Yes, I do," continued Baxter, "the Rev. Horatio Merle, my wife's second cousin once removed. As good a man as ever thumped a Bible—you know what I mean, Bish," Hiram added quickly, mistaking for a sign of disapproval the cough which the reverend auditor had substituted for a chuckle. "Yes, sir, for a downright, pure-hearted Christian you might go through the British Isles with a fine-tooth comb and not find another like Horatio Merle; but what good does that do him? He's lost five preachin' jobs in three years, and for the last six months the only flocks that have had the benefit of his pulpit oratory have been the birds and butterflies at Bainbridge Manor. I tell you, Bish, he missed his vocation. He ought to have been one of them nature sharps."
"I believe you are right," assented the bishop. "Horatio Merle would have made his mark as a naturalist. I never knew a man in whom the love of nature was more beautifully developed. He is a sort of modern St. Francis."
"Modern St. Francis," snorted Hiram. "I don't know who he was, but if he could beat Horatio Merle——"
he broke off with a broad grin. "Say, Bish, did ye hear how Horatio lost his last preachin' job?"
"Why, no. How was that?"
"Seems he was goin' to church one Sunday mornin', and passin' by the canal he saw some boys tryin' to drown a kitten. They'd just hitched a stone around its neck when Merle caught sight of 'em.
"'You young rascals,' he called out, but he was too late, and the next minute the poor little thing splashed into the water. Well, sir, that was too much for Horatio. He knew the church folks were waitin' for him, but he couldn't help it. He just waded into that canal, black clothes and all, and fished out the kitten. Then he went ahead with his religious duties while the water dripped down under his robes and the congregation made up their minds that he was plumb crazy."