I made one last wild search.
"How about a reredos?"
He looked at me in awful, pained silence.
I saw I had stumbled. "I—I mean a new wing," I stammered.
"I am afraid you are not well this morning," said the preacher, patting my hand soothingly. "Won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is, another time?"
"No, no," I cried excitedly. "It must be settled at once. I have it. A new peal of bells!"
"What is the matter with the bells?" he asked anxiously. "There isn't a single one cracked."
I saw his dubiety, and profited by it. I learnt afterwards it was due to his having no ear of his own.
"Cracked! Perhaps not," I replied in contemptuous accents. "But they deserve to be. No wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going on the subject."
"Yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all."