But the Master, while indignant with Warboise, could not help feeling just a reflex touch of vexation with Mr.Colt.

The Chaplain no doubt was a stalwart soldier, fighting the Church's battle; but her battle was not to be won, her rolling tide of conquest not to be set going, in such a backwater as St.Hospital.

Confound the fellow! Why could not these young men leave old men alone?
Thus it happened that the Master, immersed in painful thoughts, missed the launching of the Great Idea, which was to trouble him and indeed all Merchester until Merchester had done with it.
The idea was Mr.Bamberger's.
("Why, of course it was," said Brother Copas later; "ideas, good and bad, are the mission of his race among the Gentiles.") Mr.Bamberger, having taken his seat, tucked a corner of his dinner-napkin between his collar and the front of his hairy throat.
Adaptable in most things, in feeding and in the conduct of a napkin he could never subdue old habit to our English custom, and to-day, moreover, he wore a large white waistcoat, which needed protection.
This seen to, he gazed around expansively.
"A picture, by George!"-- Mr.Bamberger ever swore by our English patron saint.

"Slap out of the Middle Ages, and priceless." (He actually said "thlap" and "pritheless," but I resign at the outset any attempt to spell as Mr.Bamberger pronounced.) "-- Authentic, too! To think of this sort of thing taking place to-day in Merchester, England's ancient capital.

Eh, Master?
Eh, Mr.Mayor ?" Master Blanchminster awoke so far out of his thoughts as to correct the idiom.
"Undoubtedly Merchester was the capital of England before London could claim that honour." "Aye," agreed his Worship, "there's no end of antikities in Merchester, for them as takes an interest in such.