strings and opened the parcel. _The Chorus in Green_ was got up in what
reviewers call a dainty manner: a bronze-green cloth, well-cut gold
lettering, wide margins and black "old-face" type, all witnessed to the
good taste of Messrs Beit & Co. He cut the pages hastily and began to
read. He soon found that he had wronged Mr. Ritson--that old literary
hand had by no means stolen his book wholesale, as he had expected. There
were about two hundred pages in the pretty little volume, and of these
about ninety were Lucian's, dovetailed into a rather different scheme
with skill that was nothing short of exquisite. And Mr. Ritson's own work
was often very good; spoilt here and there for some tastes by the
"cataloguing" method, a somewhat materialistic way of taking an inventory
of the holy country things; but, for that very reason, contrasting to a
great advantage with Lucian's hints and dreams and note of haunting. And
here and there Mr. Ritson had made little alterations in the style of the
passages he had conveyed, and most of these alterations were amendments,
as Lucian was obliged to confess, though he would have liked to argue one
or two points with his collaborator and corrector. He lit his pipe and
leant back comfortably in the hedge, thinking things over, weighing very
coolly his experience of humanity, his contact with the "society" of the
countryside, the affair of the _The Chorus in Green_, and even some
little incidents that had struck him as he was walking through the
streets of Caermaen that evening. At the post-office, when he was
inquiring for his parcel, he had heard two old women grumbling in the
street; it seemed, so far as he could make out, that both had been
disappointed in much the same way. One was a Roman Catholic, hardened,
and beyond the reach of conversion; she had been advised to ask alms of
the priests, "who are always creeping and crawling about." The other old
sinner was a Dissenter, and, "Mr. Dixon has quite enough to do to relieve
good Church people."