"_Delirium tremens_ man?" said her ladyship dimly. And then suddenly, "Oh yes, I know, of course," almost in one word. Challis listened with stimulated attention, and Mr. Taylor continued: "Well!--she's Jim Coupland's sister, you see--and it seems that she used to twit him with eating the bread of idleness before he took to the retail match-trade. He considers that he is eating the bread of idleness now. Perhaps he is. But he is submitting, until he is strong on his legs again--that's his expression. Besides, we have made a composition, and half his keep is to be deducted from his savings. By-the-bye...." The Rector paused, with recollection on his face. Lady Arkroyd's speech is apt to have a superseding character--to pass by lesser folks' unimportant remarks. "I liked the father at the Hospital," she says indifferently. "I hope the child isn't going to be delicate." Mr. Taylor was arrested long enough to say, oh dear no!--oh no, it was or would be all right as far as that went--and then left it, whatever it was, to finish his own beginning. "I was just going to say what an odd chance it was that Mr. Challis's housekeeping should have absorbed Mrs. Steptoe. How does the woman answer, Challis?" For, as we have heard, these two gentlemen had become fairly well acquainted last September, in spite of the cloth of the one and the predisposition of the other--a better word for the case than "antipathies," which had almost crept into the text. One or two country-walk chats had ended in Challis giving the Rev. Athelstan practical absolution for his black stock and silk waistcoat, and the latter reflecting much on the figments of mediæval creed and formulary that make a gulf between so many intellects with concord at the root, and play into the hands of their common enemy, the Devil. Why was he glad that his friend Gus was safe in London dabbling in incense, coquetting with Holy Water, preaching Immaculate Conceptions, and not letting his left hand know that his right hand had renounced the Bishop of Rome--when a visitor like Challis might accrue at any moment at Royd Rectory, as per promise given eight months ago? Why?--simply because he felt that the bridge of his own liberality, however long the span of it, was not enough to cover the great gulf! And there was Ahriman, chuckling all the while! "I am given to understand that Mrs. Steptoe is a good plain cook," was Challis's answer to the Rector's question. Something in the manner of it seemed to throw doubt on his good faith. Otherwise, why seek confirmatory evidence, as his hearers seemed to do? "I suppose you dine at home?" said the Rector, going to the point.