"Ah!" said the Bishop, with perhaps a shade of disappointment in his voice. "I hope you have been successful." "Your Grace, I have travelled far, and not without recompense. To all I have said, 'If you give me money it is well, but if you do not it is still well.' Some have replied, 'Then we'll leave it at that,' but many have responded. See--here is my subscription book. I have begged from Batoum to Bister. I have received money in fifteen different coinages, of which the English is the finest and difficultest. Perhaps my most interesting contribution is this--see, a kopeck from Lassitudino Hospidar, the heathen cook of a Bulgarian wind-jammer, in memory of his maternal uncle, who died from the bite of a mad dog at Varna. And now, being in Bister, I thought, although it is late, I will at once call upon his Grace the Bishop, whose fame has reached our little town of Mush, whose name is known by the deep waters of Van." His lordship sighed. The west end of his cathedral was sinking below the surface. At the present rate of subsidence the Dean had calculated that only the gargoyles would be above ground in the year 3000. This had to be stopped. There was a matter of underpinning for a start, but it costs money to underpin the west end of a cathedral. And all the while the usual subscription lists had to be headed from the Palace, and there was more than the usual depression in agriculture. The Bishop felt that it was a singularly inappropriate moment to contribute to a church in Khurdistan, yet it would not do to discount his own fair fame in that far distant land. He must think the matter over. Meantime he would offer his guest such hospitality as would compensate for the smallness of his contribution. "My friend," he said, "your Patriarch shall not appeal to me in vain, although, as you may well believe, I have many calls upon my purse. But we will speak again of this. You will, of course, spend the night under my roof, and now, if you will join us at dinner I shall be very pleased." The priest's face broke into smiles. "You are most kind," he replied. "I shall be glad." Then he glanced doubtfully from the Bishop's evening dress to his own raiment. "Tut, tut," said his lordship pleasantly. "'A wash and a brush up,' as our saying is, and you'll be all right. Come along." It was 8.15 when they entered the drawing-room. "My dear," said the Bishop appeasingly to his hungry wife, "I have brought a visitor from Mush, in Asia Minor. Mr.--er--Kassala--Mrs. Dacre--my daughters." The visitor bowed low before the ladies. The Bishop thought he was going to kneel, so restrained him with a gentle hand. "Here," he went on, "is my chaplain, Mr. Jones, who will be greatly interested to hear of your work at home. And this," he concluded, "is our friend, Mr. Marmaduke Percy." Then they moved to the dining-room.