the living of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me
with endless amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline.

Also I appreciated the man's blunt candour. In due course he
arrived, and I confess that after a few Sundays of experience I

began to have doubts as to the wisdom of my choice, glad as I was
to see him personally. His sermons at once bored me, and, when

they did not send me to sleep, excited in me a desire for debate.
How could he be so profoundly" target="_blank" title="ad.深深地">profoundly acquainted with mysteries before

which the world had stood amazed for ages? Was there nothing too
hot or too heavy in the spiritual way for him to dismiss in a few

blundering and casual words, as he might any ordinary incident of
every-day life, I wondered? Also his idea of High Church

observances was not mine, or, I imagine, that of anybody else.
But I will not attempt to set it out.

His peculiarities, however, were easy to excuse and entirely
swallowed up by the innate goodness of his nature which soon made

him beloved of everyone in the place, for although he thought
that probably most things were sins, I never knew him to discover

a sin which he considered to be beyond the reach of forgiveness.
Bastin was indeed a most charitable man and in his way

wide-minded.
The person whom I could not tolerate, however, was his wife,

who, to my fancy, more resembled a vessel, a very unattractive
vessel, full of vinegar than a woman. Her name was Sarah and she

was small, plain, flat, sandy-haired and odious, quite obsessed,
moreover, with her jealousies of the Rev. Basil, at whom it

pleased her to suppose that every woman in the countryside under
fifty was throwing herself.

Here I will confess that to the best of my ability I took care
that they did in outwardseeming, that is, whenever she was

present, instructing them to sit aside with him in darkened
corners, to present him with flowers, and so forth. Several of

them easily fell into the humour of the thing, and I have seen
him depart from a dinner-party followed by that glowering Sarah,

with a handful of rosebuds and violets, to say nothing of the
traditional offerings of slippers, embroidered markers and the

like. Well, it was my only way of coming even with her, which I
think she knew, for she hated me poisonously.

So much for Basil Bastin. Now for Bickley. Him I had met on
several occasions since our college days, and after I was settled

at the Priory from time to time I asked him to stay with me. At
length he came, and I found out that he was not at all

comfortable in his London practice which was of a nature
uncongenial to him; further, that he did not get on with his

partners. Then, after reflection, I made a suggestion to him. I
pointed out that, owing to its popularityamongst seaside

visitors, the neighbourhood of Fulcombe was a rising one, and
that although there were doctors in it, there was no really

first-classsurgeon for miles.
Now Bickley was a first-classsurgeon, having held very high

hospital appointments, and indeed still holding them. Why, I
asked, should he not come and set up here on his own? I would

appoint him doctor to the estate and also give him charge of a
cottage hospital which I was endowing, with liberty to build and

arrange it as he liked. Further, as I considered that it would be
of great advantage to me to have a man of real ability within

reach, I would guarantee for three years whateverincome he was
earning in London.

He thanked me warmly and in the end acted on the idea, with
startling results so far as his prospects were concerned. Very

soon his really remarkable skill became known and he was earning
more money than as an unmarried man he could possibly want.

Indeed, scarcely a big operation took place at any town within
twenty miles, and even much farther away, at which he was not

called in to assist.
Needless to say his advent was a great boon to me, for as he

lived in a house I let him quite near by, whenever he had a spare
evening he would drop in to dinner, and from our absolutely

opposite standpoints we discussed all things human and divine.
Thus I was enabled to sharpen my wits upon the hard steel of his

clear intellect which was yet, in a sense, so limited.
I must add that I never converted him to my way of thinking and

he never converted me to his, any more than he converted Bastin,
for whom, queerly enough, he had a liking. They pounded away at

each other, Bickley frequently getting the best of it in the
argument, and when at last Bastin rose to go, he generally made

the same remark. It was:
"It really is sad, my dear Bickley, to find a man of your

intellect so utterly wrongheaded and misguided. I have convicted
you of error at least half a dozen times, and not to confess it

is mere pigheadedness. Good night. I am sure that Sarah will be
sitting up for me."

"Silly old idiot!" Bickley would say, shaking his fist after
him. "The only way to get him to see the truth would be to saw

his head open and pour it in."
Then we would both laugh.

Such were my two most intimate friends, although I admit it was
rather like the equator cultivating close relationships with the

north and south poles. Certainly Bastin was as far from Bickley
as those points of the earth are apart, while I. as it were, sat

equally distant between the two. However, we were all very happy
together, since in certain characters, there are few things that

bind men more closely than profound differences of opinion.
Now I must turn to my more personal affairs. After all, it is

impossible for a man to satisfy his soul, if he has anything of
the sort about him which in the remotest degree answers to that

description, with the husks of wealth, luxury and indolence,
supplemented by occasionaltheological and other arguments

between his friends; Becoming profoundly" target="_blank" title="ad.深深地">profoundly convinced of this truth,
I searched round for something to do and, like Noah's dove on the

waste of waters, found nothing. Then I asked Bickley and Bastin
for their opinions as to my best future course. Bickley proved a

barren draw. He rubbed his nose and feebly suggested that I might
go in for "research work," which, of course, only represented his

own ambitions. I asked him indignantly how I could do such a
thing without any scientific qualifications whatever. He admitted

the difficulty, but replied that I might endow others who had the
qualifications.

"In short, become a much cow for sucking scientists," I
replied, and broke off the conversation.

Bastin's idea was, first, that I should teach in a Sunday
School; secondly, that if this career did not satisfy all my

aspirations, I might be ordained and become a missionary.
On my rejection of this brilliant advice, he remarked that the

only other thing he could think of was that I should get married
and have a large family, which might possibly advantage the

nation and ultimatelyenrich the Kingdom of Heaven, though of
such things no one could be quite sure. At any rate, he was

certain that at present I was in practice neglecting my duty,
whatever it might be, and in fact one of those cumberers of the

earth who, he observed in the newspaper he took in and read when
he had time, were "very happily named--the idle rich."

"Which reminds me," he added, "that the clothing-club finances
are in a perfectly scandalous condition; in fact, it is ?5 in

debt, an amount that as the squire of the parish I consider it
incumbent on you to make good, not as a charity but as an

obligation."
"Look here, my friend," I said, ignoring all the rest, "will

you answer me a plain question? Have you found marriage such a
success that you consider it your duty to recommend it to others?

And if you have, why have you not got the large family of which
you speak?"

"Of course not," he replied with his usual frankness. "Indeed,