“Whose bedroom is next to mine?”
“I believe mine is, Judge,” I said with hesitancy.
“Hm! Then who on earth was talking to you until two in the morning?”
“Well, you see,” I replied more cheerfully, seeing a mischievous retreat, “it was Drummond, but I’m sure you will approve of it when I tell you that he wants to convert me to the Holy Faith!”
“Does he?” roared Mathew, banging his fist on the table and glaring at Drummond. “Then you may take it straight from me, Drummond, that if you continue to convert Parry in the small hours of the morning, I leave the Church.”
He swept out of the room, leaving Drummond as limp as the jackdaw of Rheims.
Mathew had a considerable power of acting, and could have taken a hand with the best in the old sport of quizzing or “smoking” the victim, which is known to the moderns under the name of the game of spoof. I remember well when we were travelling to some cathedral town I was specifically ordered to get copies of a ribald and amusing local paper
called the Bat, or the Porcupine, or the Jackdaw, or some such sarcastic beast or bird. This I did, and the two judges thoroughly enjoyed an open letter in it to my Lord Bishop of the diocese. The next evening the Lord Bishop dined with us in state, with other dignitaries of the city. When we retired to the drawing-room, there on the table, duly arranged with the Times, the Spectator, the Law Journal and other staid prints, were the blatant covers of the offending papers. They caught the Lord Bishop’s eye. He frowned and looked gravely on the carpet. Mathew, with his ready observation, noticed the episcopal uneasiness. He stepped to the table in sudden anger. He seized the offending copies and turned to me with a look of grave sorrow, illuminated by a tactful quiver of the left eyelid.
“Isn’t this disgraceful? I can’t hinder you from wasting your money on such trash. But to bring them into the judges’ rooms and leave them lying about here——” He stepped to the fireplace and threw them into the fire with a sigh. “Surely, Parry—surely you do not need to be told not to do such things.”
And once more the Bishop smiled a smile of righteousness and peace.