with cushions. Why people should always pounce upon
this one and manhandle it in this way"--He put it on the table and began
punching and squeezing and puffing and smoothing it till it had expanded
to its full extent. Then he flicked the dust off it with his
handkerchief. "I'll put it back in its box under the sofa," he said. "I
can't understand how it ever got out."

He dropped into an armchair and instantly recovered his equanimity.

"And why should they spare that one?" I asked.

"That," said the old man solemnly, "is my bazaar cushion."

"I thought it looked as if it had escaped from a bazaar," said I.

"It came back only last night," he went on. "Are you a judge of
cushions? How do you like it? Pretty nice piece of work, eh?"

"Yes," said I cautiously. "Looks to me pretty well put together and all
that; but it's rather--well, hideous, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes," said Father William. "I suppose it's the colour you object
to. I confess it's a bit of an eyesore. But of course it has to be like
that. It's a case of protective colouring, you know."

I didn't quite follow his line of thought and there was a short pause.
"You would hardly think to look at it," the old man went on at last,
"that that cushion has stood between me and all the trials and
persecutions incidental to bazaars for nearly half a century. Perhaps
the plague is not quite so bad as it was in the old days when I was in
my first City parish, but I must say they were particularly active last
summer. They have taken to holding them outside now, with Chinese
lanterns, so that there is no close season at all. I had the wit at the
very outset to see that the thing must be grappled with. They used to
badger me in two separate ways. I was always expected to send some sort
of contribution--and then I had to go and buy things. That was the worst
of it. I used to dive about, harassed and pursued, searching in vain for
the price of my freedom, always confronted by smoking-caps and
impossible needlework. It was a fearful ordeal."

"I know," said I, with sympathy. "I know all about it."

"But I found a way out, thanks to my cushion. I bought it at a Sale of
Work for Waifs and Strays nearly forty-seven years ago, and I think you
will agree with me that it is a fairly good cushion yet. Of course it
has been re-covered more than once. It was getting altogether too well
known in Streatham at one time. It used to be blue with horrid little
silver spangles."

"And