tle Protestant
as Catholic. I found my friend in straits, and made a bargain with
those who were pressing him--"

"Do I understand, Brother Copas, that this Petition--of which all the
strength lies in its scholarship and wording--is yours, and that on
these terms only you have given me so much pain?"

"You may put it so, Master, and I can say no more than 'yes'--though
I might yet plead that something is wrong with St. Hospital, and--"

"Something is very wrong with St. Hospital," interrupted the Master
gravely. "This letter--if it come from within our walls--But I after
all, as its Master, am ultimately to blame." He paused for a moment
and looked up with a sudden winning smile. "We have both confessed
some sins. Shall we say a prayer together, Brother?"

The two old men knelt by the hearth there. Together in silence they
bowed their heads.

CHAPTER XI.

BROTHER COPAS ON THE ANGLO-SAXON.

"You ought to write a play," said Mrs. Simeon.

Mr. Simeon looked up from his dinner and stared at his wife as though
she had suddenly taken leave of her senses. She sat holding a fork
erect and close to her mouth, with a morsel of potato ready to be
popped in as soon as she should finish devouring a paragraph of
_The People_ newspaper, folded beside her plate. In a general way
Mrs. Simeon was not a reader; but on Mondays (washing-days) she
regularly had the loan of a creased copy of _The People_ from a
neighbour who, having but a couple of children, could afford to buy
and peruse it on the day of issue. There is much charity among the
working poor.

"I--I beg your pardon, my dear?" Mr. Simeon murmured, after gently
admonishing his second son (Eustace, aged 11, named after the Master)
for flipping bread pills across the table. "I am afraid I did not
catch--"

"I see there's a man has made forty thousand pounds by writing one.
And he did it in three weeks, after beginning as a clerk in the
stationery. . . . Forty thousand pounds, only think! That's what I
call turning cleverness to account."

"But, my love, I don't happen to be clever," protested Mr. Simeon.

His wife swallowed her morsel of potato. She was a worn-looking
blonde, peevish, not without traces of good looks. She wore the
sleeves of her bodice rolled up to the elbows, and her wrists and
forearms were bleached by her morning's work at the wash-tub.

"Then I'm sure I don't know what else you are!" said she, looking at
him straight.

Mr.