"But I looks on 'em now as men of sin; they used to be proud to shake 'ands with 'Arry in his bad days, but I've shook 'em off, my brothers, and I don't foregather now with the likes of them. Don't you think it's no yarns I'm telling you, my friends; why, there's one of 'em now, a-looking on. Oh, how I wish that fighting parson was as 'appy as I am now; and if he'd only listen to me in a proper spirit he might be; but he won't, my brethren, and why won't he? Because 'is 'art is 'ard. Many's the merry round I've 'ad with the gloves with 'Andsome Jack Dodd, as is a-standing there. Why, he was one of my backers when I fought the butcher on Moulsey Hurst, and licked him, too, for the matter of that! 'Andsome Jack Dodd was proud to shake 'ands with 'Arry in those days. But will 'Appy 'Arry shake hands with him now? No, my brethren. And for why? Becos he ain't got religion." And then the preacher sat down, and Haggard and the Rev. John Dodd beat a hasty retreat. Haggard told the story to Mrs. Dodd that very evening. It was a rather mean thing to do, but Haggard was a man of impulse. CHAPTER VIII. THE VICAR TRIES PUFFIN. It must not be supposed that all the religious activity in King's Warren was confined to the Dissenters. The Reverend John Dodd was a fine old-crusted Tory; the world had gone very well with him. He had his cross, of course, in the shape of his wife Cecilia, and the Reverend B. Smiter was a very thorn in his flesh; but his living was a good living, and his peaches and his port wine were unsurpassed in the county. His archdeacon was an old personal friend of his own, and I am afraid that the post-prandial conversations of the two when the archdeacon made his yearly visitations and Mrs. Dodd had left them to themselves, turned more upon vintages and things of this world than on church matters. But a young and active bishop, of High Church tendencies, now reigned in the neighbouring cathedral, and the archdeacon in a friendly manner suggested to Dodd that it behoved him to set his house in order. "We must move with the times, Dodd," he said. "The bishop is a man of six-and-thirty and an enthusiast. I am sorry to say he is no respecter of persons. There is no doubt, my friend, that dissent has spread in this parish of late years with frightful rapidity." He spoke of it as if it were a disease. "What you want is an energetic coadjutor, and you can't do better than try Puffin. Puffin has been a Missioner, and he is a wonderful organizer. If you want to be in the bishop's good books you should try Puffin. He'll take every sort of trouble off your hands; all you have to do is to give him plenty of rope. He has his peculiarities, but he is honest in his way, and he did wonders at the East End, where he nearly killed himself by overwork. You won't keep him long, you know, for Puffin's a man certain of good preferment. He'll fill your church, and if anything will stop the insidious progress of dissent in the place, it's Puffin."