ecame almost purple in the face as I read out the final
sentences of the letter. I saw that he was struggling with some strong
emotion and suspected that he wanted very much to laugh. If he did he
suppressed the desire manfully. His forehead was actually furrowed with
a frown when I had finished. I laid the letter down on the table and
tapped it impressively with my forefinger.

"That," I said, "strikes me as a remarkably good suggestion."

Thormanby exploded.

"Of all the damned idiots I've ever met," he said, "you're the worst.
Do you mean to say that you expect me to drag Miss Battersby over to the
Archdeacon's house and dump her down there in a white satin dress with
a wedding ring tied round her neck by a ribbon and a stodgy cake tucked
under her arm?"

"I haven't actually worked out all the details," I said. "I am thinking
more of the plan in its broad outlines. After all, the Archdeacon isn't
married. We can't get over that. If that text of First Timothy is really
binding--I don't myself know whether it is or not, but I'm inclined
to take Selby-Harrison's word for it that it is. He's in the Divinity
School and has been making a special study of the subject. If he's
right, there's no use our electing the Archdeacon and then having the
Local Government Board coming down on us afterward for appointing an
unqualified man. You remember the fuss they made when the Urban District
Council took on a cookery instructress who hadn't got her diploma."

"That wasn't the Local Government Board. It was the Department of
Agriculture. But in any case neither the one nor the other of them has
anything in the world to do with bishops."

"Don't you be too sure of that. I expect you'll find they have if you
appoint a man who isn't properly qualified, and the law on the subject
is perfectly plain."

"Rot! Lots of bishops aren't married. Texts of that sort never mean what
they seem to mean."

"What's the good of running risks," I said, "when the remedy is in our
own hands? I don't see that the Archdeacon could do better than Miss
Battersby. She's wonderfully sympathetic."

"You'd better go and tell him so yourself."

"I would, I'd go like a shot, only most unluckily he's got it into his
head that I've taken to drink. He might think, just at first, that I
wasn't quite myself if I went to him with a suggestion of that sort."

"There'd be some excuse for him if he did," said Thormanby.

"Whereas, if you, who have always been