Lady Caroom greeted him as kindly as ever, and found a place for him by her side. Brooks, whose self-possession seldom failed him, smiled to himself as he recognized the bishop, who was his /vis-a-vis/. Hennibul, however, from a little lower down nodded to him pleasantly, and Lord Arranmore spoke a few words of dry greeting.
"Your friend Bullsom," he remarked, "has soon distinguished himself.
He made quite a decent speech the other night on the Tariff Bill."
"He has common-sense and assurance," Brooks answered. "He ought to be a very useful man."
Lord Hennibul leaned forward and addressed Arranmore with blank surprise on his face.
"You don't mean to say that you read the debates in the House of
Commons, Arranmore?" he exclaimed.
Lord Arranmore shrugged his shoulders.
"Since the degeneration of English humour," he remarked, "one must go somewhere for one's humour."
"I should try the House of Lords, then," a smart young under-secretary remarked under his breath, with a glance at the bishop. "There is more hidden humour in the unshaken gravity of the Episcopal Bench than in both Houses of Parliament put together."
"They take themselves so seriously," Sybil murmured.
"To our friend there," the younger man continued, "the whole world's a congregation—and, by Jove, here comes the text."