to a church"--at such moments, Dr. Orchard might be likened to
a duo-decimo Chesterton--but a Chesterton of nonconformity. For he is a
little crude, a little recent; a mind without mellowness, a spirit
without beauty, a soul which feeds upon aggression.

He makes an amusing figure with a black cloak wrapped round his little
body in Byronic folds, and a soft hat of black plush on his head, a
Vesta Tilley quickness informing both his movements and his speech, as
he nips forward in conversation with a friend, the arms, invisible
beneath their cloak, pressed down in front of him, his body leaning
forward, his peering eyes dancing behind their spectacles.

Nevertheless, those who most find him only amusing or worse still
thoroughly dislikeable, who are antipathetic to the whole man, and who
thus cannot come at the secret of his influence, must confess that there
is nothing about him either of the smooth and oily or of the adroit and
compromising. He is the last man on earth to be called an opportunist.
This is in his favour. His aggressiveness must put all but the toughest
against him. He is tremendously in earnest. It would be difficult I
think to exceed his sincerity.

But not to mind whose toes one may tread on is hardly in the style of
St. Francis; and, after all, it is possible to be tremendously earnest
about wrong things, and consumingly sincere in matters which are not
perhaps definitely certain to advance the higher life of the human race.
Humility is always safest; indeed, it is essential to all earnestness
and sincerity, if those energies are not to repel as many as they
attract.

Dr. Orchard's manner, which can be extraordinarily nettling in
conversation, as I have suggested, is evidently of a very soothing
character in the confessional--if that is the proper term. He has a
remarkable following among women, and it is said that "if he put a brass
plate on his door and charged five guineas a time" he might be one of
the richest mind-doctors in London. He himself declares that his real
work is almost entirely personal. I have heard him speak with some
contempt of preaching, quoting the witticism of a friend that "Anglican
preaching is much worse than it really need be," or words to that
effect. He likes ceremonial and private confidence. He has the instincts
of a priest.

His patients appear to be the wreckage of psychoanalysis. It is said
that "half the neurotics of London" consult him about their souls. I
ha