"Why is everything raised up on big wooden legs?" he said. "You have the floor, and then you put everything you have upon a wooden quadruped. Why do you do it?" The Vicar explained with philosophical vagueness. The Angel burnt his finger in the candle-flame--and displayed an absolute ignorance of the elementary principles of combustion. He was merely charmed when a line of fire ran up the curtains. The Vicar had to deliver a lecture on fire so soon as the flame was extinguished. He had all kinds of explanations to make--even the soap needed explaining. It was an hour or more before the Angel was safely tucked in for the night. "He's very beautiful," said the Vicar, descending the staircase, quite tired out; "and he's a real angel no doubt. But I am afraid he will be a dreadful anxiety, all the same, before he gets into our earthly way with things." He seemed quite worried. He helped himself to an extra glass of sherry before he put away the wine in the cellaret. XX. The Curate stood in front of the looking-glass and solemnly divested himself of his collar. "I never heard a more fantastic story," said Mrs Mendham from the basket chair. "The man must be mad. Are you sure----." "Perfectly, my dear. I've told you every word, every incident----." "_Well!_" said Mrs Mendham, and spread her hands. "There's no sense in it." "Precisely, my dear." "The Vicar," said Mrs Mendham, "must be mad." "This hunchback is certainly one of the strangest creatures I've seen for a long time. Foreign looking, with a big bright coloured face and long brown hair.... It can't have been cut for months!" The Curate put his studs carefully upon the shelf of the dressing-table. "And a kind of staring look about his eyes, and a simpering smile. Quite a silly looking person. Effeminate." "But who _can_ he be?" said Mrs Mendham. "I can't imagine, my dear. Nor where he came from. He might be a chorister or something of that sort." "But _why_ should he be about the shrubbery ... in that dreadful costume?" "I don't know. The Vicar gave me no explanation. He simply said, 'Mendham, this is an Angel.'" "I wonder if he drinks.... They may have been bathing near the spring, of course," reflected Mrs Mendham. "But I noticed no other clothes on his arm." The Curate sat down on his bed and unlaced his boots. "It's a perfect mystery to me, my dear." (Flick, flick of laces.) "Hallucination is the only charitable----" "You are sure, George, that it was _not_ a woman." "Perfectly," said the Curate. "I know what men are, of course." "It was a young man of nineteen or twenty," said the Curate. "I can't understand it," said Mrs Mendham. "You say the creature is staying at the Vicarage?" "Hilyer is simply mad," said the Curate. He got up and went padding round the room to the door to put out his boots. "To judge by his manner you would really think he believed this cripple was an Angel." ("Are your shoes out, dear?")