per that the last incumbent had resigned
the living of Fulcombe which was in my gift. He would therefore be
obliged if I would give it to him as the place he was at in Yorkshire
did not suit his wife's health.

Here I may state that afterwards I learned that what did not suit Mrs.
Bastin was the organist, who was pretty. She was by nature a woman
with a temperament so insanely jealous that actually she managed to be
suspicious of Bastin, whom she had captured in an unguarded moment when
he was thinking of something else and who would as soon have thought of
even looking at any woman as he would of worshipping Baal. As a matter
of fact it took him months to know one female from another. Except as
possible providers of subscriptions and props of Mothers' Meetings,
women had no interest for him.

To return--with that engaging honesty which I have mentioned--Bastin's
letter went on to set out all his own disabilities, which, he added,
would probably render him unsuitable for the place he desired to fill.
He was a High Churchman, a fact which would certainly offend many; he
had no claims to being a preacher although he was extraordinarily well
acquainted with the writings of the Early Fathers. (What on earth had
that to do with the question, I wondered.) On the other hand he had
generally been considered a good visitor and was fond of walking (he
meant to call on distant parishioners, but did not say so).

Then followed a page and a half on the evils of the existing system
of the presentation to livings by private persons, ending with the
suggestion that I had probably committed a sin in buying this particular
advowson in order to increase my local authority, that is, if I had
bought it, a point on which he was ignorant. Finally he informed me that
as he had to christen a sick baby five miles away on a certain moor
and it was too wet for him to ride his bicycle, he must stop. And he
stopped.

There was, however, a P.S. to the letter, which ran as follows:

"Someone told me that you were dead a few years ago, and of course it
may be another man of the same name who owns Fulcombe. If so, no doubt
the Post Office will send back this letter."

That was his only allusion to my humble self in all those diffuse pages.
It was a long while since I had received an epistle which made me laugh
so much, and of course I gave him the living by return of post, and
even informed him that I would increase its stipend to a sum which I
c