Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/131



Egerton is one of those men who pride themselves on freedom from conventional prejudice. If he thinks a thing is good from a literary point of view he does not care how bad it is in every other way. He rather likes shocking people. I have had to remonstrate with him more than once. His hint about the nature of the story that lay on my table frightened me. I publish The Tower Magazine with the object of making money, and I am painfully aware that it does not do to shock the public.

"Very well," I said, "leave it there. I'll read it in the train and let you know on Monday what I think of it. But if it's the kind of story"

"It is," said Egerton. "Exactly that kind of story, only worse; but it's good. It's—I speak quite literally—infernally good. I wish I knew who wrote it."

I had promised to pay a Saturday to Monday visit to my uncle Ambrose in Cambridgeshire. I owe a little attention to the old gentleman in return for my education, which he paid for, and for his kindness in allowing me to consider his rectory my home. He is rather a big man among the local clergy, being a rural dean, a canon and having some reputation as a scholar. I am told that he is likely to be an Archdeacon when the present man drops off. He has a very nice parish, a clean village inhabited, so far as I have ever seen, entirely by respectful old women who curtsey and small boys who sing in the choir. There is also a squire, but