He advanced from behind the screen.

“Major!  My most humble apologies!  I never thought of you being here!  I was showing that boy and girl of mine some of your beautiful things.”

Major Talbot-Lowry was unlike his daughter Judith in many things, and not least in his easy sufferance of those whom she, in youthful arrogance, called cads.

“Come in, Doctor, and have a cigar in peace,” he said, hospitably, putting on one side the novel he was reading.  “I thought you were Evans, or one of the maids, coming to bother me.  This damned show has turned the house upside down!”

“Well, it seems a great success,” said Dr. Mangan cordially.

“Very good of you to come,” responded his host, “more especially when it’s—­er—­it’s—­er—­such a purely local affair—­”

Dr. Mangan understood that he was receiving the meed of religious tolerance.

“Well, Major,” he said, expansively, “I lived long enough one time in England to learn that we mustn’t give in too much to the clerical gentlemen!  My own instinct is to be neighbourly, and to let my friends mind their own religion.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said Major Dick, magnanimously, forgetting, for the moment, those epithets that, in his more heated moments, he was accustomed to apply to the ministers of the Church to which he did not belong.  “Quite so, Doctor.  I’m all for toleration, and let the parsons fight it out among ’em!  Busy men, like you and me, haven’t time to worry about these affairs—­we’ve other things to think about!” He stretched a long arm for a box of cigars, and handed it to his visitor; “sit down for a bit.  There’s no hurry.  The ladies can have it all their own way for a while!”

Dr. Mangan lowered his huge person into an armchair of suitable proportions, and for some moments smoked his cigar in appreciative silence.  As a matter of fact, he was planning an approach to the subject that had instigated his visit to the library, but he was in no hurry to begin upon it, remembering that the longest way round is often the shortest way home.

“By the way, Major,” he said, taking the cigar from his mouth, and regarding it with affection, “did some one tell me that you were looking for a farming horse?”

“If they didn’t, they might have,” replied Dick.  “McKinnon’s at me to get another.  I was going to ask you if you knew of anything?”

“Well, now, that’s funny.  I was wondering to myself this morning what I’d do with that big brown horse of mine.  He’ll not go hunting again, he never got the better of that hurt he got.  But he’s the very cut of a farm-horse.  You see, the poor devil had to carry me!” ended the Big Doctor, with a laugh at himself.

“I’ll tell McKinnon of him.  He wants a horse that will—­” a recital of the accomplishments exacted by Dick’s steward followed.

Dr. Mangan listened with attention.

“Tell McKinnon he’d better have him over on trial.  I know him and his requirements!  The horse mightn’t be able to play the piano for him!” said the Doctor, facetiously.  “I’m not afraid of you, Major, but I’ve a great respect for Mr. McKinnon!”