"It is an old English term for profound thinker," I replied.
Mr Wog took out a pocket-book, and made a note; while he was doing so, he said, with a sly look, "Have you an old English word for 'quite a fine gurl'?"
"No," I said; "they are a modern invention."
"Well, sir, I can tell you the one that sat 'twixt you and me at dinner would knock the spots out of some of our 'Sent' Louis belles."
In my then frame of mind the remark caused me such acute pain that I plunged into a conversation that was going on between Grandon and Dickiefield on the present state of our relations with Brazil, and took no further notice of Mr Wog for the rest of the evening; only, as my readers may possibly hear more of him in society during this season, I have thought it right to introduce him to them at once.
We all went to hear Broadhem's speech next day, and whatever might have been our private opinion upon the matter, we all, with the exception of Grandon and Lady Ursula, warmly congratulated him upon it afterwards. John Chundango and Joseph Caribbee Islands both made most effective speeches, but we did not feel the least called upon to congratulate them: they each alluded with great affection to the heathen and to Lord Broadhem. Chundango drew a facetious contrast between his lordship and an effeminate young Eastern prince, which was highly applauded by the audience that crowded the town-hall of Gullaby; and Joseph made a sort of grim joke about the probable effect of the "Court of Final Appeal" upon the theological tenets of the Caribbee Islanders, that made Lady Broadhem cough disapprobation, and everybody else on the platform feel uncomfortable. I confess I have rather a weakness for Joseph. He has a blunt off-hand way of treating the most sacred topics, that you only find among those who are professionally familiar with the subject. There is something refreshingly muscular in the way he lounges down to the smoking-room in an old grey shooting-coat, and lights the short black meerschaum, which he tells you kept off fever in the Caribbee Islands, while the smoke loses itself in the depths of his thick beard, which he is obliged to wear because of his delicate throat. There is a force and an ease in his mode of dealing with inspiration at such a moment which you feel must give him an immense ascendancy over the native mind.
He possesses what may be termed a dry ecclesiastical humour, differing entirely from Chundango's, whose theological fun takes rather the form of Scriptural riddles, picked up while he was a catechist. Neither he nor Broadhem smoke, so we had Wog and the Bishop to ourselves for half an hour before going to bed. "You must come and breakfast with me some morning in Piccadilly to meet my interesting friend Brother Chrysostom, my lord," said I.
I always like to give a bishop his title, particularly a missionary bishop; it is a point of ecclesiastical etiquette about which I have heard that the propagators of Christianity were very particular.
"If you will allow me, sir, I will join the party," said Mr Wog, before the Bishop could reply; "and as I don't know where Piccadilly is, I'll just ask the Bishop to bring me along. There is a good deal of law going on between your bishops just now," our American friend went on, "and I should like to know the rights of it. We in our country consider that your Ecclesiastical Court is a most remarkable institution for a Christian land. Why sir, law is strictly prohibited in a certain place; and it seems to me that you might as well talk of a good devil as a religious court. If it is wrong for a layman to go to law, it must be wrong for a bishop. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; that proverb holds good in your country as well as mine, don't it?"
"The Ecclesiastical Court is a court of discipline and doctrine rather than of law," said Dickiefield.