This may seem exaggerated praise, but, indeed, it would be difficult to exaggerate my dear Dick's virtues. Doubtless his faults are being placed in the opposite page of a ledger kept somewhere with his name upon the cover; but that is no business of mine. To paste in parallel columns the virtues of our friends and the faults of ourselves, that may be unpleasant, but it is necessary if we are to turn the search-light inward. Certain weak spots we must not look at too closely if we are to keep our self-respect; but, my faith! we can well give the most of our humanity an airing now and then; also, if possible, a fumigating. It was Dick Shafthead, more than any other, who took my failings for a walk in the sunshine, and somehow or other they always returned a little abashed.
A very different person was his cousin Teddy Lumme, for whom, by-the-way, I discovered Dick had a real regard carefully concealed behind a most satirical attitude. Teddy was not clever—though shrewd enough within strict limits; he was no moralist, no philosopher; an observer chiefly of the things least worth observing—a performer upon the tin-whistle of life. But, owing to his kindness of heart and ingenuous disposition, he was wonderfully likable.
His leisure moments were devoted, I believe, to the discharge of some duty in the foreign office, though what precisely it was I could never, even by the most ingenious cross-examination, discover. His father held the respectable position of Bishop of Battersea; his mother was the Honorable Mrs. Lumme. These excellent parents had a high regard for Teddy, whom they considered likely to make his mark in the world.
I was taken to the bishopric (sic), and discussed with the most venerable Lumme, senior, many points of interest to a foreigner.
Note of a conversation with Bishop of Battersea, taken down from memory a few days after: Myself. “What is the difference between a High Church and a Low Church?”
Bishop. “A High Church has a high conception of its duties towards mankind, religion, the apostolic succession, and the costume of its clergymen. A Low Church has the opposite.”
Myself. “Are you Low Church?”
Bishop. “No.”
Myself. “I understand that the conversion of the Pope is one of your objects. Is that so?” Bishop. “Should the Pope approach us in a proper spirit we should certainly be willing to admit him into our fold.”
Myself. “Have you written many theological works?”