"That's what you told me, on the same day as he'd said the opposite, and I'm more inclined to your opinion than his. Then he makes trouble in the place itself. My girls and Miss Waterhouse are finding that out constantly. There's always a lot of quarrelling going on, and if you follow it up you generally find he has had a finger in the pie." "Well, I can't deny that either. I've often had to smooth over things that he has put wrong. He is a tiresome fellow, and there's no denying it. It would certainly be a good thing for the parish if he were got rid of. Still he hasn't done anything that he could be got rid of for, and I don't see how you're going to bring it about." "I'm going to ask him to go." Worthing stared and laughed again. "I should like to be there when you do it," he said. "I don't think you would. If you thought I was getting the better of him you'd want to take his part. That's what you're made like." "Oh, I don't know about that. But I do like to keep the peace." "If we can persuade Mr. Mercer to take himself off, I hope we shall get somebody here who'll help you. We'd better go up to the girls now. They'll be wanting their bridge." When the Vicar walked up to the Abbey the next morning in answer to Grafton's note requesting an interview, it was with anticipations not unpleasurable. Somehow, he had never succeeded in gaining the footing of intimacy with his chief parishioners that he felt to be his due. It was even some weeks now since he had been invited to the house, and he had felt aggrieved about it, because in his position he ought to have been the most frequent guest at the only other house in the place occupied by such people as himself.