"Not so," corrected Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge. "It is a great pity there are so few D.D.'s."
"Surely not!" exclaimed the table, awaiting pearls.
"Yes, we want more Down in the Dust. Psalm one hundred and nineteen, verse twenty-five. Then we would also have more 'quickened according to Thy Word.'"
A pause, forced by the awkward finality of the patriarch's utterance.
"Er—let me see," said Mr. Royle to Brother Quappleworthy, "you are an M.A. of the University of Oxford, are you not, sir?"
"Yes," was the reply, spoken with just a seasoning of pardonable pride, just a Christian seasoning, mark you, nothing more. "Yes" (confidentially) "as a matter of fact I am. I took my degree, second-class honours, in the classics: 'Greats' as we say—"
"Did yer?" interrogated Salvation (for pride is a deadly sin and a weed that must be checked, lest it grow apace). "Wull, I took my degree in summat greater, in God's great Scheme o' Salvation, and I passed with first-class honners, glory be! Unuvursity uv Oxvurrd eh? My schoolin' 'as been in the Unuvursity uv God!"
* * * * * * *
After that I recollect nothing clearly till all the guests, save Uncle Simeon and Aunt Martha, were gone, and late in the evening we sat talking in the unfamiliar idol-haunted dusk of the front parlour. I can feel again as I write the heat of that stuffy August night, and hear Aunt Jael's and Uncle Simeon's voices engaged in the talk that is stamped indelibly on my mind. I recall the scene most intimately when the same external circumstances recur. The heavy-laden atmosphere of a hot August evening, at that still murmurous moment when twilight is yielding to night—the smell, the touch, the impalpable feel of the atmosphere—always brings back to me every phase and pulse of my feelings as I sat listening to the warfare of deep raucous voice and soft honeyed one. The memory of the senses far transcends the memory of the mind. Memory in its most intimate possessions is physical.
Though mental too. In this particular instance, quite apart from any physical aid to memory that atmosphere brings, I remember, verbally, almost all that was said. It is odd that while for stretches of whole months I can often fill in but the dimmest background of my early days, at other times I retain the fullest details of a long and intricate conversation, with the gestures of the speakers and the very words they used. The explanation is to be found partly, I think, in the extreme monotony of my life and the uncommonly vivid impression which any break in the monotony always made; so that this record tends to be a stringing-together of the odd and outstanding events rather than an even and continuous narration of my "early life"; for it was a life of landmarks. But the chief explanation of the uncanny degree to which I remember certain particular scenes lies in my nightly "rehearsals." If there had been any scene or words of special interest in the day's round—if I had observed a new phenomenon (such as a Madonna or a gold watch-chain)—if I had heard a new word (like University) or had new light shed on an old one (like Degrees)—if in short the day had yielded any new fact or idea, the same night saw it deliberately stored in my mind; a treasure-house—a lumber-room—which stood open to all comers. Every night, as soon as I was in bed and my Grandmother had blown out the candle and closed the door behind her, I began. I thought my way through the day, from the moment I had risen onwards. Every new notion or notable event, I recalled, re-lived, and received into the fellowship of things I knew, felt and remembered; into myself. I had also weekly, monthly and yearly revisions.