And here, at the risk of being guilty of a digression, I must pause to record my admiration for this exceedingly happy form of compromise, which is, I think, peculiar to the British and, to a certain extent, the American nations.
It has many developments; ranging from the mild Transatlantic compound of cookery and camp-meetings, to the semi-novel, redeemed and chastened by an arrangement which sandwiches a sermon or a biblical lecture between each chapter of the story—a great convenience for the race of skippers.
Then there are one or two illustrated magazines which it is always allowable to read on the Sabbath without fear of rebuke from the strictest—though it is not quite easy to see why.
Open any one of the monthly numbers, and the chances are that you may possibly find at one part a neat little doctrinal essay by a literary bishop; the rest of the contents will consist of nothing more serious than a paper upon "cockroaches and their habits" by an eminent savant; a description of foreign travel, done in a brilliant and wholly secular vein; and, further on again, an article on æsthetic furniture—while the balance of the number will be devoted to instalments of two thrilling novels by popular authors, whose theology is seldom their strongest point.
Oddly enough, too, when these very novels come out later in three-volume form, with the "mark of the beast" in the shape of a circulating library ticket upon them, they will be fortunate if they are not interdicted altogether by some of the serious families who take in the magazines as being "so suitable for Sundays."
Mr. Bultitude, at all events, had reason to be grateful for this toleration, for in one of the bound volumes supplied to him he found a most interesting and delightfully unsectarian novel, which appealed to his tastes as a business man, for it was all about commerce and making fortunes by blockade-running; and though he was no novel reader as a rule, his mind was so relieved and set at rest by the prospect of seeing the end of his trouble at last, that he was able to occupy his mind with the fortunes of the hero.
He naturally detected technical errors here and there. But that pleased him, and he was becoming so deeply absorbed in the tale that he felt seriously annoyed when Chawner came softly up to the desk at which he was sitting, and sat down close to him, crossing his arms before him, and leaning forward upon them with his sallow face towards Paul.
"Dickie," he began, in a cautious, oily tone, "did I hear the Doctor say before dinner that he would hear anything you have to tell him after supper? Did I?"
"I really can't say, sir," said Paul; "if you were near the keyhole at the time, very likely you did."
"The door was open," said Chawner, "and I was in the cloak-room, so I heard, and I want to know. What is it you're going to tell the Doctor?"