"Who told you that?" asked the patron. "Well, at any rate I read what
you said about Ruth. It was quite scandalous! Ruth! Good Lord! what
character is safe nowadays? One of the loveliest of the women of the
Bible--my wife says so. She knows all about them. And the best painters
in the world have shown her standing among the field of oats. By the
Lord, sir, it's sheer blasphemy! and worse than that, it's making
people--good, religious people, mind, not the ruck--it's making them ask
why the blazes I gave you the living. It's a fact."

"I'm sorry for you, Tommy--very sorry. I'm also sorry for your good
religious people, and particularly sorry for the phraseology of their
earnest inquiries on what I am sure is a matter of life and death to
them--spiritually. That's my last word, Thomas."

"And you were doing so well at the Joss-house, too." Lord Earlscourt was
shaking his head sorrowfully, as he spoke. "We were all getting on so
comfortably. That was what people said to me--they said----"

"Pardon me, I'm a parson, therefore I'm not particular; but I can't
stand the way your good religious people express themselves."

"They said, 'It's so d---- pleasant to get hold of a parson who can be
trusted in the pulpit--sermons with a good healthy moral tone, and
so forth. You might bring your youngest daughter to St. Chad's in
the certainty that she would hear nothing that would make her ask
uncomfortable questions when she got home.' It's a fact, they said that;
and now you go and spoil all. The bishop will have a word to say to you
some of these days, my lad. He ran away to the Continent, they tell
me, when your book was published, and it's perfectly well known that he