The Duke Street Methodist Chapel, it may here be remarked, was a structure of appalling ugliness situate in the very midst of some of the worst slums in Bockley. Its architecture was that of a continental railway station, and its offertories between a pound and thirty shillings a Sunday. Inside the hideous building, with her back to the blue-distempered wall of the choir, the late Mrs. Weston had for many years yelled the hymns at the top of her voice.... And along the brown matting of the left-hand aisle Mr. Weston, suave and supple, collection-plate in hand, had in his time paced many miles.... Once, when the church steward was ill, his voice had been heard aloft in the reading of the notices. And at the left-hand door, while the organist played the “War March of the Priests,” he had stood with outstretched hand, saying:
“Good evening, Mrs. Lawson.... Good evening, Ethel.... ’Night, Miss Picksley ... see you at the Band of Hope on Tuesday, I suppose? ...”
He did not do that sort of thing now. In the chapel he was little seen, and the Temperance Society knew him not. Only the Guild and Mutual Improvement Society still counted him as a member, and that was solely because they had not worried him into resigning.... At the Guild and Mutual Improvement Society Mr. Weston’s carefully read papers, once a session, on “Milton,” “John Wycliff, Scholar and Saint,” “The Lake Poets,” etc., had been a well-known, but unfortunately not always well-attended feature.
For over a year the fixture-card had lacked the name of Mr. Weston.
And then, a fortnight ago—to be precise, on April 14th—Mr. Weston had been stopped in the street by Miss Picksley, the secretary of the Guild and Mutual Improvement Society. She had said:
“Oh, Mr. Weston, do give us one of your literary evenings, will you?”
Perhaps it was the subtle compliment contained in the phrase “literary evenings” that caused Mr. Weston not to say “I am sorry, but, etc., etc....” as quickly as he had intended.
Miss Picksley exploited the delay brilliantly.
“Good!” she cried, whipping out a pencil and notebook, “I’ll get your name down for May 1st.... What’ll be your subject?”
“But, er ... I don’t ... er——”