‘Story-telling!’ said Langham, with a half-exasperated shrug. ‘What next? You clergy are too inventive by half!’ Robert laughed a trifle bitterly. ‘I can’t congratulate you on your epithets,’ he said, thrusting his hands far into his pockets. ‘Good Heavens, if we _were_--if we were inventive as a body, the Church wouldn’t be where she is in the rural districts! My story-telling is the simplest thing in the world. I began it in the winter with the object of somehow or other getting at the _imagination_ of these rustics. Force them for only half an hour to live someone else’s life--it is the one thing worth doing with them. That’s what I have been aiming at. I _told_ my stories all the winter--Shakespeare, Don Quixote, Dumas--Heaven knows what! And on the whole it answers best. But now we are reading “The Talisman.” Come and inspect us, unless you’re a purist about your Scott. None other of the immortals have such _longueurs_ as he, and we cut him freely.’ ‘By all means,’ said Langham; lead on.’ And he followed his companion without repugnance. After all, there was something contagious in so much youth and hopefulness. The story-telling was hold in the Institute. A group of men and boys were hanging round the door when they reached it. The two friends made their way through, greeted in the dumb, friendly English fashion on all sides, and Langham found himself in a room half-filled with boys and youths, a few grown men, who had just put their pipes out, lounging at the back.