The bishop smiled, remembering something similar he had said himself. "Well, I must say I'm particularly drawn to Americans. Perhaps it's because they suit the Irish, but I seem to find in them a certain intellectual generosity one recognizes at once and appreciates. There aren't so many fences to climb over. And, besides, they appear to understand my cloth." "Yes?" Clark looked up, keenly interested. He had not thought much about the clerical profession. "It's quite true. They realize that a parson is a man of like predilections and impulses and weaknesses with themselves, and that a cassock does not stifle the natural and healthy ambitions of the male mammal. Nothing is more trying for the cleric than to be put aside as though he were some emasculated ascetic who was unattracted by merely natural things." "I hadn't thought of that." "Very few people have, except the cleric; and he thinks of it a good deal. There is even the tendency to believe that the parson, because he is a spiritually minded man, is incapable of horse sense in practical and public affairs. By the way, don't you smoke?" Clark smiled and shook his head. "I've never wanted to." "I did once," chuckled the prelate. "It was a big, black cigar inside a hedge about three miles out of Dublin. I've never smoked since. Now, if I may go back to the clerical question, you'll probably realize that a great many mistakes are made." "I hadn't thought much about that either." "Probably not, but it's without question that a good many parsons realize in a year or so that they're not up to their job, especially if it's a city congregation. The young and over enthusiastic rector addressing a church full of shrewd, experienced men of affairs is often in a grievous case. I've sat in the chancel and listened and writhed myself. There's many a poor parson who would make a good engineer, and he knows it." "Then why shouldn't he change over?" Clark was getting new avenues opened for him in hitherto unexplored directions. "Because he's ashamed to, and the world has the habit of thinking that the man who has once been a parson is not available for anything else. Suppose one of my missionaries came to you for a job--what would happen?" "I'd send him to you for a letter of recommendation and then put him to work." "I believe you would, now, but not a month ago." "That's quite possible." "Well, you have no conception that envy may, and sometimes does, exist in a black coated breast." "But why envy?" "Because devotion to one cause does not stifle natural aspirations in another. For instance I've often longed for time to do some writing, on my own account. One of my traveling preachers has invented a railway switch and I know he dreams of it and makes sketches on the margin of his sermons. No, my dear sir, the public has doubtless classified us, and possibly correctly, but we are still fanciful, and--" the bishop hesitated and broke off.