“Ah, you do want it when you do, guv’nor,” the man said. Then he walked off, lifting his feet a little higher, with a little colour in his cheeks and his back more erect.
“Poor devil!” Grimshaw said, half to himself.
“Surely,” the priest said beside him in fluting and lofty tones, “are we not all poor devils in the sight of the Ruler of Ages?”
Robert Grimshaw minutely bowed his head.
“Your dizziness has left you, Father?” he asked. “It is the long fasting. I was on the watch for you to fall.”
“You speak Greek,” the priest said, “and are acquainted with the practices of the Church?” It was then just the end of Lent, for Easter fell very late that year.
“My mother was a Lascarides and I have many interests in Greece,” Grimshaw answered.
“Ah! the Lascarides were very faithful,” the priest said. “It was they in the main who helped us to build the church here.”
“The church can’t be much more than a stone’s-throw from here. I was wondering what brought you.”
“I am glad you are Greek,” the Father said, “for I think it was a very good charity you did just now, and you spoke to that man like a brother, which is not what the best of these English can do.”