This was an important problem. In fact, there was a piece of parish work here that it took the Reverend Fareforth half an hour to attend to standing the while in earnest colloquy with the two ladies under the shadow of the elm trees. But a clergyman must never be grudging of his time.
"Goodbye then," they said at last. "Are you coming to the Browning Club this morning? Oh, so sorry! but we shall see you at the musicale this afternoon, shall we not?"
"Oh, I trust so," said the rector.
"How dreadfully hard he works," said the ladies to one another as they moved away.
Thus slowly and with many interruptions the rector made his progress along the avenue. At times he stopped to permit a pink-cheeked infant in a perambulator to beat him with a rattle while he inquired its age of an episcopal nurse, gay with flowing ribbons. He lifted his hat to the bright parasols of his parishioners passing in glistening motors, bowed to episcopalians, nodded amiably to presbyterians, and even acknowledged with his lifted hat the passing of persons of graver forms of error.
Thus he took his way along the avenue and down a side street towards the business district of the City, until just at the edge of it, where the trees were about to stop and the shops were about to begin, he found himself at the door of the Hymnal Supply Corporation, Limited. The premises as seen from the outside combined the idea of an office with an ecclesiastical appearance. The door was as that of a chancel or vestry; there was a large plate-glass window filled with Bibles and Testaments, all spread open and showing every variety of language in their pages. These were marked, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Ojibway, Irish and so forth. On the window in small white lettering were the words, HYMNAL SUPPLY CORPORATION, and below that, HOSANNA PIPE AND STEAM ORGAN INCORPORATED, and Still lower the legend BIBLE SOCIETY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD LIMITED.
There was no doubt of the sacred character of the place. Here laboured Mr. Furlong senior, the father of the Rev. Edward Fareforth. He was a man of many activities; president and managing director of the companies just mentioned, trustee and secretary of St. Asaph's, honorary treasurer of the university, etc.; and each of his occupations and offices was marked by something of a supramundane character, something higher than ordinary business. His different official positions naturally overlapped and brought him into contact with himself from a variety of angles. Thus he sold himself hymn books at a price per thousand, made as a business favour to himself, negotiated with himself the purchase of the ten-thousand-dollar organ (making a price on it to himself that he begged himself to regard as confidential), and as treasurer of the college he sent himself an informal note of enquiry asking if he knew of any sound investment for the annual deficit of the college funds, a matter of some sixty thousand dollars a year, which needed very careful handling. Any man—and there are many such—who has been concerned with business dealings of this sort with himself realizes that they are more satisfactory than any other kind.
To what better person, then, could the rector of St. Asaph's bring the quarterly accounts and statements of his church than to Mr. Furlong senior.
The outer door was opened to the rector by a sanctified boy with such a face as is only found in the choirs of the episcopal church. In an outer office through which the rector passed were two sacred stenographers with hair as golden as the daffodils of Sheba, copying confidential letters on absolutely noiseless typewriters. They were making offers of Bibles in half-car-load lots at two and a half per cent reduction, offering to reduce St. Mark by two cents on condition of immediate export, and to lay down St. John f.o.b. San Francisco for seven cents, while regretting that they could deliver fifteen thousand Rock of Ages in Missouri on no other terms than cash.
The sacred character of their work lent them a preoccupation beautiful to behold.