IT was one of Canon Spratte’s peculiarities that he liked to read his Times before any other member of his family. He found a peculiar delight in opening it himself, and likened the perusal of a newspaper which some one else had read, to the drinking of milk from which a dishonest dairyman had skimmed the cream. Next morning, running his eye down the list of contents, he discovered that the Bishop of Barchester was dead.
“Poor Andover is no more, Sophia,” he remarked, with a decent solemnity.
He ate his kidney absently, and it was not till he passed his coffee-cup to Lady Sophia to be refilled that he made any observation.
“It’s really almost providential that the poor old man should depart this life on the very day I am to meet Lord Stonehenge at dinner. I’d better have the pair to-night, Sophia.”
“Where are you dining?”
“At the Hollingtons,” he answered. “Last time a bishopric was vacant, the Prime Minister practically assured me that I should have the next.”
“He’s probably done the same to half the school-masters in England.”
“Nonsense! Who is there that could take it? They’ve none of them half the claims that I have.”
Theodore Spratte never concealed from the world that he rated himself highly. He esteemed bashfulness a sign of bad manners, and was used to say that a man who pretended not to know his own value was a possing fool.
“It’s a ridiculous system altogether to give a bishopric to Tom Noddy because he’s taught Latin verses to a parcel of stupid school-boys. And besides, as the youngest son of the late Lord Chancellor, I think I may expect something from my country.”