“Edmund.”
“Oh, good! I’ve always missed the wicked brother, and I long to meet him. I do hope he is not reformed or anything disastrous?”
“I hardly know yet. He’s quite prosperous this time.”
“Ah? Well, perhaps it’s ill-gotten gains and quite interesting. I want to hear his adventures from himself.”
“So no doubt you will. But I must warn you there is a stranger as well.”
The bishop’s face fell. “So I suppose I won’t be able to wear my ‘tea-gown,’” he said.
I tried to explain Captain Welfare, as well as one can explain a man one has never seen.
“I think we may be a most interesting party,” said the bishop. “I wish Captain Welfare would turn out to be a pirate in disguise. It would be so refreshing and stimulating. I should love to meet a pirate with a Nonconformist conscience.”
During lunch our talk wandered away to the early Byzantine Empire, and I explained my difficulties about that old first Greco-Turkish alliance.
I could see that Parminter was less interested than usual.