Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/30

20 The world was made for him to walk about in, with his hands in his pockets, and he liked his part well!

A school-fellow of Dr. Courtenay, he, to escape the English winter, had come on a few months' visit to his friend.

"I see no objection to a man enjoying the due reward of his toil," replied the doctor. "I've earned all I have, and most I possess is contained within the walls of this abode."

It certainly was a room to add relish to a good cigar. The dado was of leather-work, the walls above covered with a fine Indian matting. Upon the ledge that ran round the walls stood photographs, articles of vertu, and bric-à-brac, that told of European and Eastern travel. On the walls, between dark oak cabinets and brackets, were hung whips, pipes, fencing-sticks, with a few good studies in oils.

The doctor was stretched at length in a lounge that having done duty on shipboard was now lined with red cushions. His companion was coiled up "like a happy little dog," as the doctor termed it, on another lounge, pulling at a cherry-wood pipe almost as long as himself.

Seated opposite these, straddle-legs on a chair, with elbows resting on the back, his dark eyes watching the pair in an amused, half-attentive manner, was a young cleric in short undress coat. His high forehead was surmounted by thick black hair, the close-shaven face revealing a decided mouth, and the set, solid features of a Manning.

Frank Brown was vicar of the suburban parish. In his time he had rowed in "the 'Varsity" boat, played in the College Eleven, and been one of the men who were listened to at "The Union." By birth and earlier predilections a Conservative, he had, under the influence of