"I've so many apologies to offer, my very honoured and dear friend; this is so miserable, and I fear you are cold. We must get something; we must, really, manage something--some little refreshment." Dixie placed the candle on the chimney-piece, and looked inquiringly on Cleve. "There's some sherry, I know, and I _think_ there's some brandy." "There's no one up and about?" inquired Cleve. "Not a creature," said the Rector; "no one can hear a word, and these are good thick walls." "I've only a minute; I know you'd like to be a bishop, Dixie?" Cleve, with his muffler and his hat still on, was addressing the future prelate, with his elbow on the chimney-piece. "_Nolo episcopari_, of course, but we _know_ you would, and there's no time now for pretty speeches. Now, listen, you shall be _that_, and you shall reach it by two steps--the two best livings in our gift. I always keep my word; and when I set my heart on a thing I bring it about, and so sure as I do any good, I'll bend all my interest to that one object." The Rev. Isaac Dixie stared hard at him, for Cleve looked strangely, and spoke as sternly as a villain demanding his purse. The Rector of Clay looked horribly perplexed. His countenance seemed to ask, "Does he mean to give me a mitre or to take my life, or is he quite right in his head?" "You think I don't mean what I say, or that I'm talking nonsense, or that I'm mad. I'm not mad, it's no nonsense, and no man was ever more resolved to do what he says." And Cleve who was not given to swearing, did swear a fierce oath. "But all this is not for nothing; there's a condition; you must do me a service. It won't cost you much--less trouble, almost, than you've taken for me to-night, but you _must_ do it." "And may I, my dear and valued pupil, may I ask?" began the rev. gentleman. "No, you need not ask, for I'll tell you. It's the same sort of service you did for me in France," said Cleve. "Ah! ah!" ejaculated the clergyman, very uneasily. "For no one but _you_, my dear and admirable pupil, could I have brought myself to take that step, and I trust that you will on reconsideration----" "You _must_ do what I say," said Cleve, looking and speaking with the same unconscious sternness, which frightened the Rector more than any amount of bluster. "I hardly suppose you want to break with me finally, and you don't quite know all the consequences of that step, I fancy." "Break with _you_? my admirable patron! desert my dear and brilliant pupil in an emergency? _Certainly_ not. Reckon upon me, my dear Mr. Verney, when_ever_ you need my poor services, to the _uttermost_. To _you all_ my loyalty is due, but unless you made a very special point of it, I should hesitate for any other person living, _but_ yourself, to incur a second time----"