"I dessay, now," said the Mayor, "that you aint been in the way of seein' the Squire lately?" "I see him last when he signed my lease," answered the Alderman, with a grim smile, "and that's a month come to-morrow." "I had a conversation with him yesterday, and after touchin' on the matter of that last pavin' contract,--he'd heard o' your son-in-law gettin' it, Johnstone,--he got talkin' about Mr. Bannister." "Aye? did he?" "And about his noo book. 'It's a blessin',' he says, 'to see a young man of such promise shakin' himself free of that pestilential trash.' He meant your opinions by that, Johnstone." "Supposing 'e did, what then? I don't label my opinions to please the customers like as some do their physic." The Mayor was not in a fighting mood; his mind was busy with speculations, and he ignored the challenge. "Queer start Mr. Bannister showin' up at the church bazaar, eh? Spent a heap o' money, too. I met Mr. Hume, and asked him about it, and he said----" "It wan't no business o' yours, didn't he?" "Mr. Hume--he's a gentleman, Johnstone," remarked the Mayor in grave rebuke. "Well, what did 'e say?" "That where the carcass was, the eagles 'ud be gathered together." Mr. Johnstone smiled a smile of pity for the Mayor's density. "Well, what do you suppose he meant?" asked the Mayor in reply to the smile. "Where the gells is, the lads is," said the Alderman, with a wink, as he passed on his way. This most natural, reasonable, and charitable explanation of Dale's conduct in identifying himself with the Vicar's pastoral labors had, oddly enough, suggested itself to no one else, unless it might be to Captain Gerard Ripley. His presence had been hailed on the one side, and anathematized on the other, as an outward sign of an inward conversion, and his lavish expenditure had been set down to a repentant spirit rather than a desire to gratify any particular stall-holder. The Vicar had just read "Amor Patriæ," and he remarked to everyone he met that the transition from an appreciation of the national greatness to an adhesion to the national church was but a short step. Unhappily, in a moment of absence, he chanced to say so to Colonel Smith, who was at the bazaar for the purpose of demonstrating his indifferent impartiality toward all religious sects. "You might as well say," answered the Colonel in scorn, "that because a man stands by the regiment he's bound to be thick with the chaplain."