No one in the world could have been richer in anecdotes than Ronder, anecdotes of precisely the kind for the Bishop's taste, not too worldly, not too clerical, amusing without being broad, light and airy, but showing often a fine scholarship and a wise and thoughtful experience of foreign countries. The Bishop had not laughed so heartily for many a day. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" he cried at the anecdote of the two American ladies in Siena. "That's good, indeed...that's very good. Did you get that, Ponting? Dear me, that's perfectly delightful!" A little tear of shining pleasure trickled down his cheek. "Really, Canon, I've never heard anything better." Brandon thought Ronder's manners outrageous. Poor Bishop! He was indeed failing that he could laugh so heartily at such pitiful humour. He tried, to show his sense of it all by grimly pursuing his food and refusing even the ghost of a chuckle, but no one was perceiving him, as he very bitterly saw. The Bishop, it may be, saw it too, for at last he turned to Brandon and said: "But come, Archdeacon. I was forgetting. You wrote to me s-something about that Jubilee-music in the Cathedral. You find that Ryle is making rather a m-mess of things, don't you?" Brandon was deeply offended. Of what was the Bishop thinking that he could so idly drag forward the substance of an entirely private letter, without asking permission, into the public air? Moreover, the last thing that he wanted was that Ronder should know that he had been working behind Ryle's back. Not that he was in the least ashamed of what he had done, but here was precisely the thing that Ronder would like to use and make something of. In any case, it was the principle of the thing. Was Ronder henceforth to be privy to everything that passed between himself and the Bishop? He never found it easy to veil his feelings, and he looked now, as Ponting delightedly perceived, like an overgrown, sulky schoolboy. "No, no, my lord," he said, looking across at Ponting, as though he would love to set his heel upon that pale but eager visage. "You have me wrong there. I was making no complaint. The Precentor knows his own business best." "You certainly said something in your letter," said the Bishop vaguely. "There was s-something, Ponting, was there not?" "Yes, my lord," said Ponting. "There was. But I expect the Archdeacon did not mean it very seriously." "Do you mean that you find the Precentor inefficient?" said the Bishop, looking at the coffee with longing and then shaking his head. "Not to-day, Appleford, alas--not to-day." "Oh, no," said Brandon, colouring. "Of course not. Our tastes differ a little as to the choice of music, that's all. I've no doubt that I am old- fashioned." "How do you find the Cathedral music, Canon?" he asked, turning to Ronder.