| "Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, |
| Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, |
| Yeth, Jesuth lovths me, |
| The Bible tells me so." |
He ended with a triumphant little gasp and lay smiling at the sunshine.
A quarter of an hour later Father Algarcife returned to the street. It was Friday, and at two o'clock he was to be in the sacristy, where it was his custom to receive the members of his parish. It was the most irksome of his duties, and he fulfilled it with a repugnance that had not lessened with time. Now it represented even a greater strain than usual. He had been soothed by his visit to the hospital, and he dreaded the friction of the next few hours—the useless advice delivered, the trivialities responded to, the endless details of fashionable foibles that would be heard. He wondered, resentfully, if there were not some means by which this office might be abolished or delivered into the hands of an assistant. Then his eyes shot humor as he imagined Miss Vernish, Mrs. Ryder, or a dozen others consenting to receive spiritual instruction from a lesser priest with a snub-nose.
As he passed a book-shop in Union Square, a man reading the posters upon the outside attracted his notice.
"Oh, I say, Mr. Algarcife!"
He stopped abruptly, recognized the speaker, and nodded.
The other went on with a heated rush of words.
"Those are fine things of yours, those sermons. I congratulate you."
"Thank you."
"Yes, they are fine. But, I say, you got the better of the Scientific Weekly writer. It was good."