He gave the panama a scale—to show me he was an informal guy like me—and dropped into one of my chairs. The thing squeaked hard and braced itself. I figured to be charming for about ten minutes.
I'm a sucker for people who get to see me, anyway. I like most people—as individuals, to begin with; and although I do what I can—and the family does what it can—to keep the more extraverted oddities from jimmying doors and peering through bedroom windows, I spend a God-awful amount of time chitchatting with visiting strangers of all sorts.
The chair he'd taken was in reach of my MS, so he reached for it. It is possible that he was trying to adjust to the fact that I was wearing only a pair of shorts.
"Sounds amusing," he said, after reading a few lines.
That was what Gwen had said the night before. I was glad to see the Cloth in agreement with the professionally unclad. Competent magazine fiction should appeal to all tastes.
"Pleased that you think so."
I told myself that I had no right to be irritated at the preacher's patronizing tone, or at his unasking and uninvited reading of my manuscript. After all, when artists paint in public places, people feel free to look over their shoulders.
"I'm the rector of St. Shadows, over on Park," he said. "But don't hold that against me."
I'd heard of the guy. The "Socker" came from intercollegiate boxing—at which he had been champ of his class many long years ago. My old man thought he was a "great personality, a liberal, a true intellectual of the church, and a profound modern philosopher."