This evening, too, I had a little business with Father Letheby. As I entered his parlor, I carried a tiny slip of printed paper in my hand.
"You'd hardly guess what it is?" I said, holding it from the light.
"A check for a hundred pounds, or my removal!" he exclaimed.
"Neither. Read it!"
I am quite sure it was infinitely more gratifying than the check, to say nothing of the removal; and I am quite sure the kindly editor, who had sent me that proof of Father Letheby's first poem, would have been amply repaid for his charity if he had seen the shades and flushes of delight and half-alarm that swept like clouds across the face of the young priest. And it was not all charity, either. The good editor spoke truly when he declared that the poem was quite original and out of the beaten track, and would probably attract some attention. I think, next to the day of his ordination, this was the supreme day in Father Letheby's life hitherto.
"It was very kind," he said, "very kind indeed. And how am I to thank you, Father Dan?"
"By keeping steadily at the work I pointed out for you," I replied. "Now, let me see what you have done."
"Do you mean about the books?" he asked.
"Yes," I said determinedly, "and about the horarium I marked out and arranged for you. Have you conscientiously studied during the two hours each evening, and written from 11 a.m. to noon every day, as I appointed?"
"To be candid," he said at once, "I have not. First came the lack of books. Except Butler's 'Lives of the Saints,' I cannot come across a single indication of what Basil and the Gregories did or wrote; and my edition of Butler is expurgated of all the valuable literary notes which, I understand, were in the first editions. Then the moment I take the pen into my hand, in comes Mrs. Luby to know wouldn't I write to the colonel of the Connaught Rangers to get her little boy discharged and sent home. He enlisted in a fit of drink. Then comes Mrs. Moriarty with the modest request to write to the pastor of Santa Barbara about her little girl who emigrated to America sixteen years ago. Then comes—"