The chairman bent to Sir Bates Dudley and whispered—
'What a good-looking wench it is!'
'Is she, indeed?' said the canon. 'You don't mean to say so.'
It did not comport with ecclesiastical, certainly not with canonical, decorum and dignity to know whether a girl were good-looking or not.
The chairman turned to the magistrate on his left and made the same remark. This magistrate was a layman, a retired admiral, who had come to live in Ely because his daughter was married to an official there. His name was Abbott. There was no etiquette in Her Majesty's Navy against observing good looks. He replied, 'Thunderingly so, Christian.'
Christian was the chairman's name.
'I'll speak the truth,' said Zita; 'though it is against nature—just as it was against nature for that little fat gentleman to ride yesterday; but he did it, because he ought.'
A roar of laughter at the expense of Sir Bates Dudley.
'Go on,' said the chairman, hardly controlling himself—the lay members of the Bench loved to have a joke at the expense of the clerical members. 'Tell your story, and tell it truthfully, or you'll get yourself into difficulties.'
'I mean to,' said Zita.