Notwithstanding his natural hypersensibility, that peculiar individual did not become the plaything of his emotions until some time after the event which brought them into action. At the moment when blows or blessings fell upon him, he rarely was conscious of more than a crab is conscious of when its shell is struck or stroked. Later, when he deliberately set himself to analyse consequences, all his senses throbbed and tingled. But, at first, he was wont to act, on the impulse certainly:--but to act. Having acquainted himself with the contents of the envelope, he took out his beloved Waterman, saying "I'm sure Your Eminency will let me have the pleasure of writing my first cheque here." He handed to the cardinal a draft for five thousand pounds, payable to bearer. It afterwards occurred to him that he could have taken no more cynical way of testing the reality of this fortune. He felt ashamed of himself, for he hated cynicism. The act itself merely was the act of a man awakening from a vivid dream and automatically doing what he had resolved, before falling asleep, to do. In effect, it was by way of being a pinch of a kind to himself. There was no doubt whatever but that it was a pinch of another kind to the cardinal. Followed alternately disclaimers, stolidity, embarrassment, humility, unction: the cheque went into the bureau, the cheque-book and the bank-book into the pocket of George's jacket. And now, what was the extent of his theological studies? His general knowledge of course was unexceptional: but special--knowledge theology? Well, in Dogma he had done the treatises _On Grace_--"a very difficult treatise, Mr. Rose"--and _On the Church_--"a very important treatise, Mr. Rose;"--and in Moral Theology he had read Lehmkuhl, especially _On the Eucharist_ and _On Penance_,--"nothing could be better, Mr. Rose." These had been the subjects of the professorial lectures at Maryvale. During the years which had elapsed since then, he had read them again and again, until he thought he had them at his fingers' ends. As for Cardinal Franzelin's _De Ecclesia_ (that was the Maryvale text-book), he found it one of the most fascinating books in the world. In fact, it was a regular bedside book of his: and by this time he knew it by heart. Being a man of letters, of course he would like to enlarge it a little, to put a gloss upon it here and there, perhaps even to expand the thesis at certain points. St. Augustine's _Encheiridion_ was another favourite book. And St. Anselm's _Cur Deus Homo_ was another. His reading was extensive and curious: but, sad to say, desultory and unsystematic, because undirected. He had read the standard works as a matter of duty: but he had made a far more exhaustive study of obscure writers. The occult, white magic _bien entendue_, was intensely interesting, the book on _Demoniality_ by Fr. Sinistrari of Ameno, for example. Perhaps it would be desirable for him to tabulate the sum