"But, my dear fellow, we are very comfortable as we are. I hate a clerical firebrand. Why can't we rub along comfortably for the rest of my time?" "The days of rubbing along, Dodd, are gone by. As the bishop puts it, the Church in these latter days must be a Church militant, or it will cease to exist." "But it needn't become a Church pugnacious for all that," said Dodd. "My dear fellow, if we were certain that I should be archdeacon for ever you might, as you put it, go on rubbing along. But the king who knew not Joseph has arrived. Our spiritual head is a man who will stand no nonsense. If you don't follow his lead, he will look upon you as refractory. Don't be refractory, Dodd; try Puffin. You will find him a perfect panacea." "But I don't believe in panaceas," said Dodd; "the fellow will set the whole place by the ears before he has been here a month. Why, in this village the aggrieved parishioner does not even exist. If a man doesn't like the church he takes sittings in the chapel, and there is an end of the thing." "My dear fellow, you mistake the matter altogether. Now-a-days, a real, good, wrong-headed aggrieved parishioner is exactly what you do want. He keeps you before the public, and brings you to the favourable notice of your spiritual head." "But look at the fuss, the letters, and the lawsuits." "With a new bishop, Dodd, and a man like Puffin at your back, though there would be lots of fuss, it need not trouble you. Puffin would write all the letters; and as for the lawsuits, you would win them, and the costs would not come out of your pocket. Puffin, of course, sails rather close to the wind, if I may be allowed the expression, but he knows exactly how far he can go. In fact, Dodd, though he puts his candles upon the altar he never lights them, except at evensong, and then he knows he can do so with impunity." And then they gradually began to talk about the wine. The result of this conversation was that the Reverend John Dodd hastened to secure the services of that energetic priest the Reverend Barnes Puffin.