"Personally," he said stiffly, "I am unable to draw this distinction between lay people and clergy, except where the affairs of the church are concerned, and I must say it strikes me as odd that the wife of a priest should wish to do so. In ordinary social intercourse I should have said that a well-educated clergyman, who happened also to be a man of the world, was about the best company that could be found anywhere. His thoughts are apt to be on a higher plane than those of other men, but that need not prevent him shining in the lighter phases of conversation. I have heard better, and funnier, stories told by clergymen over the dinner-table than by any other class of human beings, though never, I am thankful to say, a gross one." "Oh, yes, dear," said Mrs. Mercer soothingly. "I like funny stories with a clerical flavour the best of all myself. Do tell Mrs. Walter that one about the Bishop who asked the man who came to see him to take two chairs." "As you have already anticipated the point of the story," said the Vicar, not mollified, "I think I should prefer to save it for another occasion. I was over at Surley Rectory yesterday calling on poor old Mr. Cooper. You have never met him, I think, Mrs. Walter." "No," she said. "He has been more or less laid up ever since we came here." "I am afraid he will never get about again. He seems to me to be on his last legs, if I may so express myself." No objection being made to his doing so, he went on. "He has done good work in his time. He is past it now, poor old man, but in years gone by he was an example to all--full of energy and good works. I have been told that before he came to Surley, and held a small living somewhere in the Midlands, he did not rest until he had raised the endowment by a hundred pounds a year. That means hard unremitting work, in these days when the laity is apt to keep its purse closed against the claims of the church. I always like to give credit where credit is due, and I must say for old Mr. Cooper that he has deserved well of his generation." "It is nice to think of his ending his days in peace in that beautiful place," said Mrs. Walter. "When Mollie and I went to call there in the summer I thought I had never seen a prettier house and garden of its size." "I wish we could have the luck to get the living when old Mr. Cooper does go," said Mrs. Mercer artlessly. "I don't want the old gentleman to die yet awhile, naturally, but he can't be expected to hold out very much longer; he is eighty-four and getting weaker every day. _Somebody_ must be appointed after him, and I think myself it ought to be an incumbent of the diocese who has borne the heat and burden of the day in a poorly endowed living."