Page:Garman and Worse.djvu/191

Rh know anything if you only give yourself the trouble to make a few inquiries; and so I soon got a clear knowledge that the person who had got up the whole thing was the dean. So one day I called upon him."

"No! I never heard of that!" cried Rachel. "What did the dean say?"

"Nothing. The answer he gave me amounted to nothing. Not that I wish you to understand that he held his tongue. On the contrary, he talked incessantly in his best-modulated voice, and was smiling, friendly, in fact, almost appreciative, but not a single word fell from his lips that was really to the point. Do what I would, I could not get him to discuss a single question, or to give me a reason as to why he had got me turned out of the workman's society, and put his chaplain in my place. He denied nothing and confessed nothing, and the end of it was—there, again, my misfortune—I got so annoyed to see him leaning back in his chair, with his white hair and ever-lasting smile, that I got into one of my worst tempers and poured out a regular volley of thunder at him."

"Well, and the dean—did he lose his temper?" asked Rachel.

Worse laughed. "I might just as well have tried to get a spark out of wood, as to get him to lose his temper. No; the dean was bland as ever, and when I left he shook my hand, and hoped he might soon have the pleasure of seeing me again. But afterwards I got well paid out for that visit"

"How was that?" she asked.

"Well, you see, since then I seem to have been