His tone of superior wisdom, meek and depressed as he always was, tried the Rector’s patience enough to make his forehead burn and bring out his white eyebrows in strong relief.  “How about a blessing on the work?” he asked, suppressing so much that he hardly knew this was spoken aloud.

Again Mr. Fuller smiled.  He had been a bit of a humorist when he was an Oxford don.  “Speak of that to Briggs,” he said, “and he would answer, ’Cash for me, and the blessing may take care of itself.’  As to the ladies—­why, they deafen you about blessings on their humble efforts, and the widow’s mite.”

“Simply meaning that they want their amusement a little—­”

“Buttered over,” said Mr. Fuller, supplying the word.  “Though you are hard on them, Charnock—­I don’t know about the fine ladies; but there are quiet folk who will work their fingers to the bone, and can do nothing else.”

“That’s true,” said Julius; “and one would gladly find a safe outlet for their diligence.”

“You do not trust to it for bringing the blessing,” said Mr. Fuller in a tone that Julius liked even less than the mere hopeless faint-heartedness, for in it there was sarcasm on faith in aught but pounds s. d.

The two brothers held another discussion on this matter later that night, on the stairs, as they were on their way to their rooms.

“Won’t you come to this meeting to-morrow, Julius?” asked Raymond.

“I don’t see that I should be of any use, unless—­”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you would make what seems to me the right proposal, and I could be any support in it.”

“What’s that?”

“To use the insurance to put up the mere shells and plain indispensable fittings of the church and town-hall, then make the drainage of Water Lane and Hall Street the first object for the rates, while the church is done by subscription and voluntary effort.”

“You put the drainage first—­even before the church?” said Raymond, smiling, with an elder brother’s satisfaction in such an amount of common sense.

“Of course I do,” said Julius.  “An altar and four walls and chairs are all that ought to be sought for.  Little good can be done to people’s souls while their bodies are in the feverish discomfort of foul air and water.  This is an opportunity not to be wasted, while all the houses are down, town-hall and all.”

“The very thing I told Briggs and the others this morning,” said Raymond; “but I could not get a hearing; they said there never had been any illness worth mentioning, and in fact scouted the whole matter, as people always do.”

“Yes, they take it as a personal insult when you mention the odorous—­or odious, savours sweet,” said Julius.  “I heard a good deal of that when we had the spell of cholera at St. Awdry’s.”

“I shall work on at it, and I trust to get it done in time,” said Raymond; “but it will not be at once.  The subject is too new to them, and the irritation it produces must subside before they will hear reason.  Besides, the first thing is to employ and feed these paper-makers.”