"Mr Boulter!" exclaimed the Dean. The man himself, the landlord of "The Rose and Crown." The Dean reflected. He rubbed his nose with his glasses. "What is it that Mr Boulter can wish to say to me? However, I will see him. Tell him so." The servant vanished. The Dean turned to the assembled clergymen. "It is, perhaps, just as well that I should see the man at once, and let him know clearly what our position is."
"Exactly," said Canon Gorse. "Let him understand that plainly. It will not only be fair to ourselves, but it will also be fair to the man."
Mr Boulter was a portly person: his countenance was ruddy; in manner he was affable. He was, all over, Mine Host of the Inn; a type of Boniface which, if we may believe the chroniclers, used to abound, but which, under the present advance of the teetotal forces, is, we will say fortunately, becoming extinct. He reverenced a gentleman, but above all things he reverenced the cloth. His motto as a boy had been "Church and Crown"; but in these latter days he had begun to fear that both Church and Crown were on the side of the enemy.
"Mr Boulter," observed the Dean, as he entered the room in which that gentleman was waiting, "I am pressed for time. Indeed, I have a meeting in the library. I must therefore ask you to tell me in as few words as possible what it is you wish to say."
Mr Boulter turned the brim of his hat round and round in his hands.
"It is about the lease, Mr Dean."
"I thought so. I may as well be brief with you, and clear. You may take my word for it that the lease will not be renewed, and that, in short, 'The Rose and Crown' will cease to be an inn."
"I think not, Mr Dean."
"You think not, Mr Boulter! May I ask what you mean?"
There was something in the tone in which Mr Boulter said that he thought not which the Dean did not understand. He stared at Mr Boulter with dignified surprise. Mr Boulter actually smiled.