"Hallo, Kestern," cried Hannam joyfully as he entered, "glad you're up early. Want some tea? Do come in. Let me introduce you--Father Vassall, Mr. Kestern of this college." Paul found himself shaking hands with the Popish priest. He did it nervously, but with obvious interest. Odd as it may seem, Popish priests were as rare and as strange to Paul as Buddhist monks. The stranger seemed to appreciate the fact. His eyes twinkled. "H-H-Hannam has t-told me a little about you, Mr. K-Kestern," he said. Paul laughed engagingly, and much more pleasantly than one ought to do with the devil. But then there was an air about this priest that was amazingly boyish, eager and attractive. You felt at once, as it were, his radiant personality. Besides there were no hypocrisies about Father Vassall, and he always came straight to the point. His tone suggested to Paul what he meant. "That I am a fierce Protestant, I suppose you mean," smiled Paul. "And a p-p-poet," stammered the little priest, "which is very much nicer, Mr. Kestern." "You two ought to have a lot in common," put in Hannam with lazy interest. "Father Vassall was once a Protestant, Kestern, and he is still a poet." "Much b-better P-P-Protestant than p-p-poet," exploded the accused merrily. They drew round the fire with their tea. Conversation ranged over their doings in the vacation and the prospects of the term, and Paul learned that Father Vassall had been a wet Bob at Eton and cox of his college crew at the University. Absurdly enough, he had never associated such healthy doings with Papistry. But Father Vassall had been a Protestant then. This amazing fact held Paul's mind. It staggered him to think that Protestants could ever become Catholics. He looked on the priest with amazement and real sorrow. For one thing he could never have known Christ.... Hannam asked Paul if he had been to the theatre; Paul confessed to _Peter Pan_; Father Vassall said that above all things he would like to see it. "Why don't you go then?" enquired Paul carelessly. "P-priests are forbidden to go to p-plays," said Father Vassall. "What!" cried Paul. Ridiculously, it was his first shock. He had always understood that actors, actresses and Roman Catholics owned the same master and were as thick as thieves, and here was a priest professing to be forbidden by his Church to go to the theatre at all! Father Vassall explained. "But we can go to m-m-music halls," he stammered, his eyes alight with mischief. "Kestern prefers missionary meetings," said Hannam. "Why," exclaimed the priest eagerly, his stutter all but disappearing in his enthusiasm; "you should come and hear Father Kenelm then, Mr. Kestern. He has been t-thirty years in South America, and is utterly devoted to our Lord and the Church's work out there. He is over here arranging for the publication of the B-Bible in one of the native tongues and is speaking in Cambridge this week."