'I don't think she would tell a deliberate falsehood, my love.'
'All the same, she might exaggerate little into much,' said Lucy, with a pretty grimace. 'What is your opinion of this hotel, Mr Cargrim?'
The chaplain saw his opportunity and seized it at once. 'My dear Miss Pendle,' he said, showing all his teeth, 'as The Derby Winner is the property of Sir Harry Brace I wish I could speak well of it, but candour compels me to confess that it is a badly-conducted house.'
'Tut! tut!' said the bishop, 'what is this? You don't say so.'
'Harry shall shut it up at once,' cried Lucy, the pretty Puritan.
'It is a resort of bad characters, I fear,' sighed Cargrim, 'and Mrs Mosk, being an invalid, is not able to keep them away.'
'What about the landlord, Mr Cargrim?'
'Aha!' replied the chaplain, turning towards Mrs Pendle, who had asked this question, 'he is a man of lax morals. His boon companion is a tramp called Jentham!'
'Jentham!' repeated Dr Pendle, in so complacent a tone that Cargrim, with some vexation, saw that he did not associate the name with his visitor; 'and who is Jentham?'
'I hardly know,' said the chaplain, making another attempt; 'he is a tramp, as I have reason to believe, and consorts with gipsies. I saw him myself the other day—a tall, lean man with a scar.'