'Come on, mother—you want to, don't you?'
'Yes—but not if he's a rude man, dear,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, slowly ascending the steps. 'Perhaps you had better tell him who father is.'
'I don't think it would impress him much,' said Brosy, smiling. 'Parsons come here too often for that.'
'Parsons! Yes; but not bishops,' said his mother, coming into the echoing hall, through whose emptiness her last words rang like a trumpet.
'He wouldn't know what a bishop is. They don't have them.'
'No bishops?' exclaimed his mother, stopping short and staring at her son with a face of concern.
'Bitte um die Eintrittskarten,' interrupted the custodian, slamming the door; and he pulled the tickets out of Brosy's hand.
'No bishops?' continued Mrs. Harvey-Browne, 'and no Early Fathers, as that smashed-looking person, that cousin of Frau Nieberlein's, told us last night? My dear Brosy, what a very strange state of things.'
'I don't think she quite said that, did she? They have Early Fathers right enough. She didn't understand what you meant.'
'Stick and umbrella, please,' interrupted the custodian, snatching them out of their passive hands. 'Take the number, please. Now this way, please.'