The servant said Mr Mallow was very busy with his sermon just then, but she would see.
But Oswald said, ‘It’s all right. He asked us to come.’
So she let us all in and shut the front door, and showed us into a very tidy room with a bookcase full of a lot of books covered in black cotton with white labels, and some dull pictures, and a harmonium. And Mr Mallow was writing at a desk with drawers, copying something out of a book. He was stout and short, and wore spectacles.
He covered his writing up when we went in—I didn’t know why. He looked rather cross, and we heard Jane or somebody being scolded outside by the voice. I hope it wasn’t for letting us in, but I have had doubts.
‘Well,’ said the clergyman, ‘what is all this about?’
‘You asked us to call,’ Dora said, ‘about your little Sunday school. We are the Bastables of Lewisham Road.’
‘Oh—ah, yes,’ he said; ‘and shall I expect you all to-morrow?’
He took up his pen and fiddled with it, and he did not ask us to sit down. But some of us did.
‘We always spend Sunday afternoon with Father,’ said Dora; ‘but we wished to thank you for being so kind as to ask us.’
‘And we wished to ask you something else!’ said Oswald; and he made a sign to Alice to get the sherry ready in the glass. She did—behind Oswald’s back while he was speaking.