Theron mounted the steps, and looked about for a bell-pull.

Search revealed instead a little ivory button set in a ring of metal work.

He picked at this for a time with his finger-nail, before he made out the injunction, printed across it, to push.

Of course! how stupid of him! This was one of those electric bells he had heard so much of, but which had not as yet made their way to the class of homes he knew.

For custodians of a mediaeval superstition and fanaticism, the Catholic clergy seemed very much up to date.