almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request.

"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector.

"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one
behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder.

"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a
heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the
world and out again, at all events."

There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was
in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as
well as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to
Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking,
coupled with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most
unassuming attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the
unbeliever.

"I plead guilty to the former," answered Faber, "but somehow I have
never practiced the euthanasia. The instincts of my profession, I
suppose are against it. Besides, that ought to be your business."

"Not altogether," said the rector, with a kindly look from his box,
which, however, only fell on the top of the doctor's hat.

Faber seemed to feel the influence of it notwithstanding, for he
returned,

"If all clergymen were as liberal as you, Mr. Bevis, there would be more