Page:Chesterton - The Club of Queer Trades.djvu/146

The Club of Queer Trades "There is one thing I don't understand," I said—"why you are both vicars."

A shade crossed the brow of the temporary incumbent of Chuntsey, in Essex.

"That may have been a mistake, sir," he said. "But it was not our fault. It was all the munificence of Captain Fraser. He requested that the highest price and talent on our tariff should be employed to detain you gentlemen. Now the highest payment in our office goes to those who impersonate vicars, as being the most respectable and more of a strain. We are paid five guineas a visit. We have had the good-fortune to satisfy the firm with our work, and we are now permanently vicars. Before that we had two years as colonels, the next in our scale. Colonels are four guineas." 128