“Yes, and you’re more trouble than all the rest put together.  Look here, I’ve written to the Bishop’s chaplain about that confirmation; I explained why we wanted to hold a special confirmation for these two boys we are emigrating, and he has written back to say that the Bishop has no objection to a special confirmation’s being held by the Bishop of Matabeleland when he comes to stay here next week.  At the same time, he says the Bishop doesn’t want it to become a precedent.”

“No.  I can quite understand that,” Father Rowley chuckled.  “Bishops are haunted by the creation of precedents.  A precedent in the life of a bishop is like an illegitimate child in the life of a respectable churchwarden.  No, the only thing I fear is that if I devour all your spare time you won’t get quite what you wanted to get by coming to live with us.”

He laid a fat hand on Mark’s shoulder.

“Please don’t bother about me,” said Mark.  “I get all I want and more than I expected if I can be of the least use to you.  I know I’m rather disappointing you by not behaving like half the people who come down here and want to get up a concert on Monday, a dance on Tuesday, a conjuring entertainment on Wednesday, a street procession on Thursday, a day of intercession on Friday, and an amateur dramatic entertainment on Saturday, not to mention acting as ceremonarius on Sunday.  I know you’d like me to propose all sorts of energetic diversions, so that you could have the pleasure of assuring me that I was only proposing them to gratify my own vanity, which of course would be perfectly true.  Luckily I’m of a retiring disposition, and I don’t want to do anything to help the ten thousand benighted parishioners of Saint Agnes’, except indirectly by striving to help in my own feeble way the man who really is helping them.  Now don’t throw that inkpot at me, because the room’s quite dirty enough already, and as I’ve made you sit still for five minutes I’ve achieved something this evening that mighty few people have achieved in Keppel Street.  I believe the only time you really rest is in the confessional box.”

“Mark Anthony, Mark Anthony,” said the priest, “you talk a great deal too much.  Come along now, it’s bedtime.”

One of the rules of the Mission House was that every inmate should be in bed by ten o’clock and all lights out by a quarter past.  The day began with Mass at seven o’clock at which everybody was expected to be present; and from that time onward everybody was so fully occupied that it was essential to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Guests who came down for a night or two were often apt to forget how much the regular workers had to do and what a tax it put upon the willing servants to manage a house of which nobody could say ten minutes before a meal how many would sit down to it, nor even until lights out for how many people beds must be made.  In case any guest should forget this rule by coming back after ten o’clock, Father Rowley made a point of having the front door bell to ring in his bedroom, so that he might get out of bed at any hour of the night and admit the loiterer.  Guests were warned what would be the effect of their lack of consideration, and it was seldom that Father Rowley was disturbed.