"I say, Browne," burst out Deppingham, irrelevantly, his eyeglass
clenched in the tight grasp of a perplexed frown, "would you mind
telling me that story about the bishop and the door bell again?"

Britt laughed hoarsely, his chubby figure shivering with emotion.
"You've heard that story ten times, to my certain knowledge,
Deppingham."

His lordship glared at him. "See here, Britt, you'll oblige me by--"

"Very well," interrupted Britt readily. "I forget once in a while."

"The trouble with you Americans is this," growled Deppingham, turning to
Browne and speaking as if Britt was not in existence: "you have no
dividing line. 'Gad, you wouldn't catch Saunders sticking his nose in
where he wasn't wanted. He's--"

"I was under the impression that you wanted him," interrupted Britt,
most good-naturedly, his stubby legs far apart, his hands in his
pockets.

"I say, Browne, would you mind coming into my room? I want to hear that
story, but I'm hanged if I'll listen to it out here."

The oft-told story of the bishop and the bell, of course, has no bearing
upon the affairs of Miss Pelham and Thomas Saunders. And, for that
matter, the small affairs of that worthy couple have little or no
bearing upon the chief issue involved in this tale. Nobody cares a rap
whether Saunders, middle-aged and unheroic bachelor, with his precise
little "burnsides," won the heart of the pert Miss Pelham, precise in
character if not always so in type. It is of no serious consequence that
she kept him from calling her Minnie until the psychological moment, and
it really doesn't matter that Thomas was days in advancing to the
moment. It is only necessary to break in upon them occasionally for the
purpose of securing legal advice, or the equally unromantic desire to
have a bit of typewriting done. We are not alone in this heartless and
uncharitable obtrusion. Deppingham, phlegmatic soul, was forever
disturbing Saunders with calls to duty, although Saunders was brutish
enough, in his British way, to maintain (in confidence, of course) that
he was in the employ of Lady Deppingham, or no one at all. Nevertheless,
he always lived under the shadow of duty. At any moment, his lordship
was liable to send for him to ask the time of day--or some equally
important question. And this brings us to the hour when Saunders
unfolded his startling solution to the problem that confronted them all.

First, he confided in Britt, soberly, sagely and in perfect good