"Five hundred would be nearer the mark," said the vicar.
"The fewer one has the nearer one approaches to Aquinas's homo unius libri," returned the squire. "You are nine thousand five hundred degrees nearer to ideal wisdom than I am."
Mr. Ambrose laughed.
"Nevertheless," he said, "you may be sure that if you give me leave to use your books, I will take advantage of the permission. It is in writing sermons that one feels the want of a good library."
"I should think it would be an awful bore to write sermons," remarked the squire with such perfect innocence that both the vicar and Mrs. Goddard laughed loudly. But Mrs. Ambrose eyed Mr. Juxon with renewed severity.
"I should fancy it would be a much greater bore, as you call it, to the
congregation if my husband never wrote any new ones," she said stiffly.
Whereat the squire looked rather puzzled, and coloured a little. But Mr.
Ambrose came to the rescue.
"Yes, indeed, my wife is quite right. There are no people with such terrible memories as churchwardens. They remember a sermon twenty years old. But as you say, the writing of sermons is not an easy task when a man has been at it for thirty years and more. A man begins by being enthusiastic, then his mind gets into a groove and for some time, if he happens to like the groove, he writes very well. But by and by he has written all there is to be said in the particular line he has chosen and he does not know how to choose another. That is the time when a man needs a library to help him."
"I really don't think you have reached that point, Mr. Ambrose," remarked
Mrs. Goddard. She admired the vicar and liked his sermons.
"You are fortunately not in the position of my churchwardens," answered
Mr. Ambrose. "You have not been listening to me for thirty years."
"How long have you been my tenant, Mrs. Goddard?" asked the squire.