Father Mostyn opened his roomy eye to the reception of surprise.
"Ha! Is it possible? Within measurable distance of us?"
"At Cliff Wrangham."
"Cliff Wrangham!" The ecclesiastical eyebrows elevated themselves up out of sight under Father Mostyn's cap-rim. "So near and yet so far! Friends?" he added, as the eyebrows came down, casting over the word a delicate interrogative haze.
The Spawer cleaved its meaning.
"I am making them," he said. "At present I am merely a lodger."
"Merely a lodger," Father Mostyn repeated, using the words to nod over, as was his wont. "And Mrs. Dixon, I suppose, is our landlady? Ha! I thought so. She has the monopoly hereabouts. A tower of nonconformity in a district pillared with dissent—but a skilled cook. A cook for an abbot's board. Only describe what a dish smells like and she will come within reasonable approach of its taste on the table. You won't have much fault to find with the meals—I 've tried 'em. Her chicken-pies are a specialty. There 's not a single crumb of vice in the whole crust, and the gravy glues your lips together with goodness. The pity is they are not even Protestant pies, and are impiously partaken of on Fridays and other holy fast days. You need never fear for a dinner. All you have to do is to go out into the yard and point your finger at it. We possess an agreeable knack of spiriting poultry under the crust hereabouts without unnecessary formula. It is inherited. Beef will give you trouble, and mutton; both in the buying and the masticating. We kill once a week. Killing day falls the day after you want steak in a hurry—or has fallen some days before. That is because we sell first and slaughter second. Our Ullbrig butchers leave nothing to chance. They keep a beast ready in the stall, and as soon as the last steak 's sold by allotment, they sign the execution warrant. Not before, unless the beast falls ill. In the matter of fish we are better off. We don't go down to the sea in ships for it—we should come back without it if we did. We get it at Fussitter's. Ready tinned."
"Ready tinned!" said the Spawer. "It sounds rather deadly, does n't it? It puts me in mind of inquests, somehow."
"Ha!" Father Mostyn made haste to explain. "You must n't buy it out of the window. That 's where the deadliness comes in. The sunlight has a peculiar chemical action upon the tin, liberating certain constituents of the metal exceedingly perilous to the intercostal linings. Insist on having it from under the counter. Ask for tinned lobster—as supplied to his reverence the vicar...." He wrote out the instructions with his right forefinger upon the left-hand palm. "To be kept in a Cool, Dark Place under the Counter. The crayfish brand. Nothing but the crayfish brand. Ask for the vicar's lobster—they 'll know what you mean—and see that you get it."
"Would n't one of Mrs. Dixon's pies come in rather handy there, even on Friday?" the Spawer suggested.