quiet that part of the time he hardly seemed to follow what Mullins
was saying. So Mullins was glad of that, because it proved that the
Dean wasn't feeling disappointed as, in a way, he might have.

Indeed, the only time when the rector seemed animated and excited in
the whole interview was when Mullins said that the campaign had been
ruined by a lot of confounded mugwumps. Straight away the Dean asked
if those mugwumps had really prejudiced the outcome of the campaign.
Mullins said there was no doubt of it, and the Dean enquired if the
presence of mugwumps was fatal in matters of endeavour, and Mullins
said that it was. Then the rector asked if even one mugwump was, in
the Christian sense, deleterious. Mullins said that one mugwump
would kill anything. After that the Dean hardly spoke at all.

In fact, the rector presently said that he mustn't detain Mullins too
long and that he had detained him too long already and that Mullins
must be weary from his train journey and that in cases of extreme
weariness nothing but a sound sleep was of any avail; he himself,
unfortunately, would not be able to avail himself of the priceless
boon of slumber until he had first retired to his study to write some
letters; so that Mullins, who had a certain kind of social quickness
of intuition, saw that it was time to leave, and went away.

It was midnight as he went down the street, and a dark, still night.
That can be stated positively because it came out in court
afterwards. Mullins swore that it was a dark night; he admitted,
under examination, that there may have been the stars, or at least
some of the less important of them, though he had made no attempt, as
brought out on cross-examination, to count them: there may have been,
too, the electric lights, and Mullins was not willing to deny that it