To rise and go out and ask him into his study with all courtesy was, of course, the duty of Noble, both as a brother minister and a Christian gentleman; but it was with no doubt as to the nature and object of his visit that he did so, and with a desire to bring their interview to as early a close as might consist with common civility. The contrast of the two parsons as they entered the study, and as Master Daws seated himself in the tall chair which Noble drew forward for him with a quick and rather, indeed, an impatient motion, was comic in the extreme, and would have greatly diverted any of Noble’s old college cronies, as it would, of a truth, the good vicar himself, could he have looked on, and been spared the vexation of playing as a principal in the dull performance. Master Daws was a tall, gaunt, bony personage, of a stature exceeding six feet by nearly two inches: he presented a rigid outline of sharp angles from his cheek bones to his pointed and protuberant ankles. His features were coarse; his complexion muddy; his eyes round and dull; his forehead low; and there was an expression of bad temper about the corners of his mouth. His black hair was cut close, and he had thin weak eye-brows. He seated himself with a slow solemnity of manner; placed his tall greasy cane erect between his knees, and folded his clumsy hands upon the top of it; turned up the whites of his eyes in a pretended ejaculation; and in a drawling tone delivered himself of his hypocritical errand as follows:-- “My dear brother in the Lord--thou art esteemed a master in Israel--thou hast a name to live. I would fain hope that thou art not a willing partaker of the sins of thy people; but verily they stink in the nostrils of all true Christians, who are thy neighbours. We have conferred together--we are sore grieved--we are ashamed for thy sake--and I am come to reason with thee alone concerning the abominations which are daily committed in thy parish, lest thou perish and thy people with thee.”