Newbold lifted his eyes in interrogation.
“Yourself!” the Bishop concluded.
Suddenly Newbold’s face, set as marble, puckered unbearably. “There’s someone else, too!” Forcing the words out, he quoted, “‘I don’t care if you are a minister. I’m your son, and I know you’re a hypocrite!’ How’s that,” he was furious at the catch in his throat, “how’s that—for a speech—from an only son—on Christmas morning!”
“It is not true, Murray!”
“You are perhaps the only man who believes in me, Bishop.”
“It is because I have known you longest.”
“I am afraid the truth is that your namesake, my son, has the sharper eyes, as well as the sharper tongue. A son’s estimate of his father is doubtless the correct one. Yet it’s an ugly word—hypocrite! I confess it drew blood, and knocked me out for the day.” He looked oddly sheepish, boyish, in his confession, in spite of all the signs of torturing nerves upon a body too vigorous to take ill-health with any poise or patience. “You see I got up this morning feeling rather out of sorts. I hadn’t slept since twelve. I’ve been dreading the services more and more lately. I’m haunted by the idea of collapsing suddenly before the eyes of my congregation—those eyes!
“Then breakfast was late. If only, only, only,” his heavy fist came down lightly but tensely upon the blotter, “the women would not look as if they expected a scene under such circumstances. I had meant to hold my tongue. But I didn’t. Nobody said anything, so I fancy I continued to fill in the pauses. Harry sat with a face that made me want to knock him down. It was afterwards that he spoke, a full hour afterwards, when I had managed to pull myself together and was on my way to church. He stopped me in the hall with ‘Going to the communion, father? After making mother and Lois feel like that?’ Then he added that little remark about hypocrisy, I came back upstairs, here. Presently you came. A highly successful Christmas! A merry family group, do you not think so, Bishop?”
The Bishop had closed his eyes. This was the kind of thing that hurt his head, and he must keep his head clear, must! “Christmas is not half over,” he said, starting at the thought of the morning slipping by, and the church, so near, calling to him, “There is half of Christmas left!”
“Half a day in which to teach my son to respect me!”