"No; it was Nevil who got wind of it. They are going to print a letter from his future father-in-law, the Bishop of Larborough."
"Hah!" said Mrs. Sharpe. "Toby Byrne."
"You know him?" asked Robert, thinking that the quality of her tone would peel the varnish off wood if spilt on it.
"He went to school with my nephew. The son of the horse-leech brother. Toby Byrne, indeed. He doesn't change."
"I gather that you didn't like him."
"I never knew him. He went home for the holidays once with my nephew but was never asked back."
"Oh?"
"He discovered for the first time that stable lads got up at the crack of dawn, and he was horrified. It was slavery, he said; and he went round the lads urging them to stand up for their rights. If they combined, he said, not a horse would go out of the stable before nine o'clock in the morning. The lads used to mimic him for years afterwards; but he was not asked back."
"Yes; he doesn't change," agreed Robert. "He has been using the same technique ever since, on everything from Kaffirs to creches. The less he knows about a thing the more strongly he feels about it. Nevil was of the opinion that nothing could be done about the proposed letter, since the Bishop had already written it, and what the Bishop has written is not to be contemplated as waste-paper. But I couldn't just sit and do nothing about it; so I rang him up after dinner and pointed out as tactfully as I could that he was embracing a very doubtful cause, and at the same time doing harm to two possibly innocent people. But I might have saved my breath. He pointed out that the Watchman existed for the free expression of opinion, and inferred that I was trying to prevent such freedom. I ended up by asking him if he approved of lynching, because he was doing his best to bring one about. That was after I saw it was hopeless and had stopped being tactful." He took the cup of coffee that Mrs. Sharpe had poured out for him. "He's a sad come-down after his predecessor in the See; who was the terror of every evil-doer in five counties, and a scholar to boot."
"How did Toby Byrne achieve gaiters?" Mrs. Sharpe wondered.