“It’s a wonder to me,” he growled to Dr. Mangan, after Sister Maria Joseph had left the room, having taken, in her anxiety to show respect, quite half a minute in closing the door with suitable noiselessness, “why people can’t attend to what’s said to them!  If there’s a thing I hate, it’s being bothered repeating an entirely trivial matter, which—­“—­here Father Tim’s voice began to take on the angry, high tenor of one of his prototypes—­“she had a right to have heard at the first offer!  I declare I’m beside meself sometimes with the annoyance I get!”

Dr. Mangan laid his spatulate fingers upon the sufferer’s hairy wrist.

“We’ll have to give his Reverence a sedative, Danny,” he said, winking at his colleague.  “I’d be sorry to see you that way, Father; the bed’s narrow enough for you as it is, without having you beside yourself in it!”

Father Sweeny’s mood was one to which chaff did not commend itself.  He snatched his hand from beneath the Doctor’s fingers, and picked up some letters that lay beside him.

“Look at this, I ask you!  From Mary Murphy, saying her husband is quite well, and that he took the turn for good from the minute he was anointed!  And me lying here crippled!”

“‘The dog it was that died!’” quoted Dr. Mangan, smoothly.

“What dog?” demanded Father Sweeny, with indignation, “I d’no what you’re talking about!”

“Ah, nothing, nothing,” said the Big Doctor, with a lift of the spirit at the thought of his superior culture, “but surely it wasn’t to show me Mary Murphy’s letter that you sent poor Sister Maria Joseph on a fool’s errand?”

“Why a fool’s errand?” demanded the now incensed Father Sweeny.  “What d’ye mean?”

“Look at the newspaper on the floor here,” returned the Doctor.  “You’ll have her back in a minute, begging your pardon again, to tell you so.”

Father Sweeny glared, speechless, at his tormentor for an instant; then, rinding the Big Doctor unmoved “in the furnace of his look,” he fell back on his pillows.

“Lock the door!” he commanded angrily.  He pushed a letter into the Doctor’s hand.  “Read that!”

“Hullo!  The Major!  What’s he got to say to you, Father Tim?”

“Read it, I tell you!”

Dr. Mangan did so, with attention, and read it a second time before he replaced it in its envelope and handed it back to the priest.

“That’s a nice letter!” said Father Sweeny, with a snort that he believed to be a laugh.  “What d’ye think of that now, you that are so fond of Protestants!”

“I think the man is justified,” said the Doctor, stoutly.  “There’s no such great hurry, and anyhow, his authority is at an end.  He couldn’t give you as much as’d sod a lark now—­”

“Nor he wouldn’t if he could!” broke in Father Sweeny.  “And there is hurry, and great hurry!  How will I build my chapel without the land to put it on?  Will you tell me that?”