He said he lived on the other side of the passage, "and perhaps his young friend would come in and smoke a pipe with him." They went into a room much the same as Gobion's. A jug of steaming water stood on the table by a bottle of gin.
"My name is Belper," said the old gentleman, "the Reverend Peter Belper, though I no longer have a cure of souls. Will you have some Old Tom? I never work, but it makes me very thirsty."
Gobion drank; he was not in a state of mind to be surprised at anything. This leering old satyr seemed quite natural and in proper sequence.
"I won't ask you what you've done," he said to Gobion. "A gentleman doesn't live here for no reason." He spoke with a wagging of his heavy jaw, with a hoarse bleat, but an accent in which still lingered a trace of culture.
"No," said Gobion; "I suppose we're a shady lot in this hole."
"We are, we are; I myself am not what I was. Good heavens! I was once a vicar! I am now a moral object-lesson. I used to live by sermonizing, now I sermonize by living. A university man, may I ask?"
"Yes—Oxford."
"Really, there are then two of us. Mrs. Ebbage ought to congratulate herself."
"Have you been with her long?"