“I’ve been badly treated in Wield.  Certainly, they made me Monseigneur.  But then they couldn’t very well do less after I built this church.  We’ve been successful here.  And I venture to think popular.  But the Bishop is in the hands of the Irish.  He cannot grasp that the English people will not have Irish priests to rule them.  They don’t like it, and I don’t blame them.  You’re not Irish, are you?”

Mark reassured him.

“This plaice isn’t bad, eh?  I ordered turbot, but you never get the fish you order in these Midland towns.  It always ends in my having plaice, which is good for the soul!  Ha-ha!  I hate the Irish myself.  This school of which I am the chief trustee was intended to be a Catholic reformatory.  That idea fell through, and now my notion is to turn it into a decent school run by secular clergy.  All the English Catholic schools are in the hands of the regular clergy, which is a mistake.  It puts too much power in the hands of the Benedictines and the Jesuits and the rest of them.  After all, the great strength of the Catholic Church in England will always be the secular clergy.  And what do we get now?  A lot of objectionable Irishmen in Trilby hats.  Last time I saw the Bishop I gave him my frank opinion of his policy.  I told him my opinion to his face.  He won’t get me to kowtow to him.  Yes, I said to him that, if he handed over this school to the Dominicans, he was going to spoil one of the finest opportunities ever presented of educating the sons of decent English gentlemen to be simple parish priests.  But the Bishop of Dudley is an Irishman himself.  He can’t think of anything educationally better than Ushaw.  And, as I was telling you, I saw there was nothing for it but to take the whole matter right up to headquarters, that is to Rome.  Did I tell you that the Papal Guards turned out and presented arms?  Ah, I remember now, I did mention it.  I was extraordinarily impressed by them.  A fine body.  But generally speaking, Rome disappointed me after many years.  Of course we English Catholics don’t understand that way of worshipping.  I’m not criticizing it.  I realize that it suits the Italians.  But suppose I started clearing my throat in the middle of Mass?  My congregation would be disgusted, and rightly.  It’s an astonishing thing that I couldn’t buy a good pipe in Rome, don’t you think?  I must have lost mine when I got out of the carriage to look at the leaning tower of Pisa, and my other one got clogged up with some candle grease.  I couldn’t get the beastly stuff out, so I had to give the pipe to a porter.  They’re keen on English pipes, those Italian porters.  Poor devils, I’m not surprised.  Of course, I need hardly say that in Rome they promised to do everything for me; but you can’t trust them when your back is turned, and I need hardly add that the Bishop was pulling strings all the time.  They showed me one of his letters, which was a tissue of mis-statements—­a regular tissue.  Now, suppose you had a son and