"But there might have been leaders about it."
"Hardly sensational enough for that! Stay I have an idea. In the beautiful Ages of Faith, when a Church-bell was being cast, the pious used to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in the furnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. A mediæval practice is always so poetical. Perhaps I could revive it. My congregation is so very good."
"Good!" I echoed, clapping my hands. "But a Concert will not suffice—we shall need a Bazaar," said the preacher.
"Oh, but I must have a Concert!"
"Certainly Bazaars include Concerts."
How the Duchess wanted to appear.
That was how the Great Church Bazaar originated and how the Rev. Melitos Smith came to resurrect the beautiful mediæval custom which brought him so much kudos and extracted such touching sentiments from hardened journalists. The Bazaar lasted a week, and raised a number of ladies in the social scale, and married off three of my girl-friends, and cut me off the visiting list of the Duchess of Dash. She was pining for a chance of coming out in a comic opera chanson, but this being a Church Bazaar I couldn't allow her to kick up her heels. Everything could be bought at that Bazaar, from photographs of the Rev. Melitos Smith to impracticable mouse-traps, from bread-and-cheese to kisses. There were endless side-shows, and six gipsy girls scattered about the rooms, so that you could have your fortune told in six different ways. I should not like to say how much that Bazaar cost me when the bill for the Bells came in, but then Lord Arthur sang daily in the Concert Hall, and I could also deduct the price of the pair of gloves Captain Athelstan gave me. For the Captain honorably stood the loss of his wager, nay, more, cheerfully accepted his defeat, and there on the spot—before the "Portrait of another Gentleman"—offered to enlist in the Bazaar. And very useful he proved, too. We had to be together, organizing it, nearly all day and I don't know what I should have done without him. I don't know what his Regiment did without him, but then I have never been able to find out when our gallant officers do their work. They seem always to be saving it up for a rainy day.
I was never more surprised in my life than when, on the last night of the Bazaar-boom, amid the buzz of a brisk wind-up, Lord Arthur and Captain Athelstan came into the little presidential sanctum, which had been run up for me, and requested a special interview.
"I can give you five minutes," I said, for I felt my finger was on the pulse of the Bazaar, and my time correspondingly important.