“That will do, Ethel; it's a great h-help to an obscure parson in the poorest of parishes to have a wife who believes in him, and makes four hundred pounds out of two.”
“And now about the money. Was the asking hard?”
“It might have been, but every one was so j-jolly. The first man I went to was Mr. Welsby, and as soon as I came into his room he cried out, 'Was just thinking of you: I hope you're on the w-warpath for that playground, for I've a five-pound note ready for you.'
“He sent me on to a cotton b-broker, and he thanked me several times for coming on such a good errand, and backed up Welsby with five pounds. Every person had a kind word, and by five o'clock I had...
“The whole sum?”
“With six p-pounds over, which will get a little sheltered seat for old people. How good those city fellows are when they fancy a cause.”
“And when they fancy the man who pleads it, Fred. Did you not get one refusal?”
“Well, I was h-hurt by one man, who treated me rather shabbily. He allowed me to explain the whole scheme—swings, sand-heaps, seats and all—and he asked me a hundred questions about the parish and my work, till I think he knew as much about the place as we do ourselves, and then sent me off without a penny—said he didn't give to subscriptions on p-principle.”
“What a mean, hypocritical wretch!”
“I left rather down, for I had lost h-half an hour with him, and I was afraid I had offended him by some remark, but when I met Welsby again in the street and told him, he declared that I ought not to have been sent there, because D-Dodson—that's his name—was the most inquisitive and hardest man on 'Change.”