The Vicar blinked. It seemed almost indecent to acknowledge a lack of money in this fashion, especially to a man who had 'private means.' He turned to Prescott. "I don't think you will find it practicable to live in a few rooms here," he said. "Your parishioners expect more of you in the country than they do in a town. You have to keep up your position before them." Viola's interposition had lifted a weight from her husband's mind. Of course she would undertake all that sort of thing. It wasn't for him to bother himself about it. They would be quite happy living in two rooms together, with the furniture that they already had; and, with the enormous income of L500 a year that would now be at their disposal, they would be able to get whatever they wanted to furnish the rest. Nor was he at all subdued by the Vicar's speech. "Oh, we are not going to be bothered about keeping up a position," he said. "I expect I shall have plenty of parishioners a good deal poorer than I am." With the casting off of the burden which had begun to oppress him, he emerged into a condition of extremely high spirits again. He drew comparisons between the state in which he would live and that in which the Mercers had lived. He chaffed the Vicar, and treated him generally as if he were rather a comic character. He showed himself extremely irresponsible with regard to all questions of management, both domestic and official, and told Mrs. Mercer that if she hadn't taken all that sort of thing off her husband's hands it must have been because she was not fit to be a clergyman's wife. He received in a spirit of levity a list of fixtures which the Vicar had typed out for him, services in the church, meetings for this and that in the schoolroom and elsewhere, an itinerary of visiting for three afternoons in the week. "You _have_ been a busy little bee," he said. "I expect you've kept them all in order too. I'm afraid I shan't be able to do that. But it all looks splendid on paper. I wish I could afford a typewriter. But what's this word 'agout'? Oh, I see, it's meant for 'about.' Thanks very much. I'll put it in my pocket." When they had taken themselves off the Vicar went into his study, with his mouth set and the cloud on his Olympian brow that his wife had become so used to after interviews of this sort. She followed him in, however, and sat herself down in the high chair by the fireplace to go through with it. "Upon my word!" he began. "It's a positive _insult_ for Grafton to put a man like that in to succeed me. And unless I am very much mistaken, it's meant as such." "The Bishop chose him, you know, Albert," she said quietly. "Mr. Grafton told us that he had asked him to recommend him somebody."