Suggestiveness. Henry could never understand that word as applied in condemnation. Should not everything be suggestive? Or should all literature, art, and humour be a cul-de-sac, suggesting no idea whatsoever? Henry did not want to be uncharitable, but he could not but think that those who used this word in this sense laid themselves open to the suspicion (in this case, at least, quite unjustified), that their minds were only receptive of one kind of suggestion, and that a coarse one.
“I expect,” he replied, “that you mean coarseness. People often do when they use that word, I notice. Anyhow, the papers are not very funny, I find.”
“Suggestiveness,” said the clergyman, “is seldom amusing.”
Before Henry had time to argue again about this word, he hurried on.
“I sent yesterday a long message to the Church Times, the Guardian, the Commonwealth, and the Challenge about the first meeting. It is most important that these papers should set before their readers the part that the Church ought to play in promoting international goodwill.”
“Indeed,” said Henry, who did not see Anglican journals. He added vaguely, “The Pope sent a telegram....” For when people spoke to him of Church life, he said “the Pope” mechanically; it was his natural reaction to the subject.
“You interest me,” said the English clergyman. “For the second time you have mentioned the Pope to me. Are you, perhaps, a Roman Catholic?”
“I suppose,” Henry absently agreed, “that is what you would call it.”
“We do, you know,” the clergyman apologised. “Forgive me if it seems discourteous.... You know, then, of course, who that is, opposite?”
Henry looked across the hall to the opposite gallery, and perceived that his companion was referring to a small, delicate-looking elderly man, with the face of a priest and the clothes of a layman, who had just taken his seat there.