ust ride a notion when I get astride of
one--St. Hospital would be no more than what we call an episode.
We'd start with Alfred the Great--maybe before him; work down to the
Cathedral and its consecration and Sir John, here--that is, of
course, his ancestor--swearing on the Cross to depart for Jerusalem."

Sir John--a Whig by five generations of descent--glanced at Mr.
Bamberger uneasily. He had turned Unionist when Mr. Gladstone
embraced Home Rule; and now, rather by force of circumstance than by
choice, he found himself Chairman of the Unionist Committee for
Merchester; in fact he, more than any man, was responsible for Mr.
Bamberger's representing Merchester in Parliament, and sometimes
wondered how it had all come about. He answered these rare
questionings by telling himself that Disraeli, whose portrait hung in
his library, had also been a Jew. But he did not quite understand
it, or what there was in Mr. Bamberger that personally repelled him.

At any rate Sir John was a pure Whig and to your pure Whig personal
dignity is everything.

"So long," murmured he, "as you don't ask me to dress up and make
myself a figure of fun."

The Bishop had already put the suggestion, so far as it concerned
him, aside with a tolerant smile, which encouraged everything from
which he, _bien entendu_, was omitted.

Mr. Bamberger, scanning the line of faces with a Jew's patient
cunning, at length encountered the eye of Mr. Colt, who at the
farther end of the high table was leaning forward to listen.

"You're my man," thought Mr. Bamberger. "Though I don't know your
name and maybe you're socially no great shakes; a chaplain by your
look, and High Church. You're the useful one in this gang."

He lifted his voice.

"You won't misunderstand me, Master," he said. "I named the
Cathedral and the Crusades because, in Merchester, history cannot get
away from the Church. It's _her_ history that any pageant of
Merchester ought to illustrate primarily--must, indeed: _her_ past
glories, some day (please God) to be revived."

"And," said Mr. Bamberger some months later, in private converse with
his brother Isidore, "that did it, though I say it who shouldn't.
I froze on that Colt straight; and Colt, you'll allow, was trumps."

For the moment little more was said. The company at the high table,
after grace--a shorter one this time, pronounced by the Chaplain--
bowed to the Brethren and followed the Master upstairs to the little
ro