Gallagher, not the young doctor (who was always out in the country in
the afternoon)--would come over and bring his latest Indian relics
to show to the Dean, the latter always read to him a passage or two.
As soon as the doctor laid his tomahawk on the table, the Dean would
reach for his Theocritus. I remember that on the day when Dr.
Gallagher brought over the Indian skull that they had dug out of the
railway embankment, and placed it on the rustic table, the Dean read
to him so long from Theocritus that the doctor, I truly believe,
dozed off in his chair. The Dean had to wait and fold his hands with
the book across his knee, and close his eyes till the doctor should
wake up again. And the skull was on the table between them, and from
above the plum blossoms fluttered down, till they made flakes on it
as white as Dr. Gallagher's hair.

I don't want you to suppose that the Rev. Mr. Drone spent the
whole of his time under the trees. Not at all. In point of fact, the
rector's life was one round of activity which lie himself might
deplore but was powerless to prevent. He had hardly sat down beneath
the trees of an afternoon after his mid-day meal when there was the
Infant Class at three, and after that, with scarcely an hour between,
the Mothers' Auxiliary at five, and the next morning the Book Club,
and that evening the Bible Study Class, and the next morning the
Early Workers' Guild at eleven-thirty. The whole week was like that,
and if one found time to sit down for an hour or so to recuperate it
was the most one could do. After all, if a busy man spends the little
bit of leisure that he gets in advanced classical study, there is
surely no harm in it. I suppose, take it all in all, there wasn't a
busier man than the Rural Dean among the Anglican clergy of the
diocese.