"But you mustn't do it here."
"Of course," said Mr. Seyton, "Sewell is a very able man, and no end
of a good fellow, but you can't expect me to admit he's a priest."
He smiled in sweet enjoyment of his friend's wrath. Lemuel observed
that he spoke with an accent different from the others, which he
thought very pleasant, but he did not know it for that neat
utterance which the Anglican Church bestows upon its servants.
"He's no Jesuit," growled Meredith.
"I'm bound to say he's not a pagan, either," laughed the clergyman.
"These gentlemen exchange these little knocks," Bellingham explained
to Lemuel's somewhat puzzled look, "because they were boys together
at school and college, and can't realise that they've grown up to be
lights of the bar and the pulpit." He looked round at the different
plates. "Have some more shad?" No one wanted more, it seemed, and
Bellingham sent it away by the man, who replaced it with broiled
chicken before Bellingham, and lamb chops in front of Mr. Seyton.
"This is all there is," the host said.
"It's enough for me," said Meredith, "if no one else takes
anything."
But in fact there was also an omelet, and bread and butter delicious
beyond anything that Lemuel had tasted; and there was a bouquet of
pink radishes with fragments of ice dropped among olives, and other
facts of a polite breakfast.
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