reat deal may
differentiate you. Suppose, now, I were to ask what separates you
from a layman, that you should have a right, which you deny him, to
pronounce the Absolution. You will answer me, and in firm faith,
that by a laying-on of hands you have inherited--in direct succession
from the Apostles--a certain particular virtue. You know me well
enough by this time to be sure that, while doubting your claim, I
respect its sincerity. . . . It is a claim, at least, which has
silently endured through some hundreds of generations of men, to
reassert itself quietly, times and again, after many hundreds of
accesses of human madness. . . . I do not press the validity of my
mission, which derives what sanction it may merely from a general
spiritual tradition of the race. But yours is special, you say; by
it _you_ are consecrated, separated, reserved. Then if you are
reserved to absolve men of their sins, may you not be rightly
reserved against sharing in their combats?"

"I am hot," the Vicar acknowledged; "and in my heat the most I can
manage is sarcasm. But I have the grace to hope that in process of
time I shall acquire the sweeter temper of irony."

A dull thud shook the atmosphere overhead, and was followed some four
seconds later by another and louder reverberation. The two men,
startled for a moment, smiled as they collected their thoughts.
"That means security, not danger."

"Gun-practice. We were warned of it by advertisement in this
morning's paper. A 9.4-inch gun, by the sound of it--and there goes
another! A battle-cruiser at least!--Shall we walk out to the cliffs
for a sight of her?"

CHAPTER XI.

THE THREE PILCHARDS.

"Boo-oom!" echoed Un' Benny Rowett on the Quay, mocking the noise of
the cannonade. "War--bloody war, my hearties! There goes a hundred
pound o' taxpayers' money; an' there go all our pilchards for this
season, the most promisin' in my recollection."

"He'll be tellin' us," suggested a humourist, "that the British Navy
is firin' on pilchards, in the hope there may be a submarine
somewhere amongst 'em."

"I never rose to the height o' puttin' myself into the enemy's mind,"
retorted Un' Benny; "which they tell me, in the newspapers, is the
greatest art o' warfare. I be a modest man, content with
understandin' pilchards; and if you'd ever taken that trouble, Zack
Mennear--Boo-oom! there it goes again!--you'd know that, soon as they
hear gunfire, or feel it--for their sens