The Missioner was a tall hatchet-faced hollow-eyed ascetic, harsh and bigoted in the company of his equals whether clerical or lay, but with his flock tender and comprehending and patient.  The only indulgence he accorded to his senses was in the forms and ceremonies of his ritual, the vestments and furniture of his church.  His vicar was able to give him a free hand in the obscure squalor of Lima Street; the ecclesiastical battles he himself had to fight with bishops who were pained or with retired military men who were disgusted by his own conduct of the services at St. Simon’s were not waged within the hearing of Lima Street.  There, year in, year out for six years, James Lidderdale denied himself nothing in religion, in life everything.  He used to preach in the parish church during the penitential seasons, and with such effect upon the pockets of his congregation that the Lima Street Mission was rich for a long while afterward.  Yet few of the worshippers in the parish church visited the object of their charity, and those that did venture seldom came twice.  Lidderdale did not consider that it was part of the Lima Street religion to be polite to well-dressed explorers of the slum; in fact he rather encouraged Lima Street to suppose the contrary.

“I don’t like these dressed up women in my church,” he used to tell his vicar.  “They distract my people’s attention from the altar.”

“Oh, I quite see your point,” Thurston would agree.

“And I don’t like these churchy young fools who come simpering down in top-hats, with rosaries hanging out of their pockets.  Lima Street doesn’t like them either.  Lima Street is provoked to obscene comment, and that just before Mass.  It’s no good, Vicar.  My people are savages, and I like them to remain savages so long as they go to their duties, which Almighty God be thanked they do.”

On one occasion the Archdeacon, who had been paying an official visit to St. Simon’s, expressed a desire to see the Lima Street Mission.

“Of which I have heard great things, great things, Mr. Thurston,” he boomed condescendingly.

The Vicar was doubtful of the impression that the Archdeacon’s gaiters would make on Lima Street, and he was also doubtful of the impression that the images and prickets of St. Wilfred’s would make on the Archdeacon.  The Vicar need not have worried.  Long before Lima Street was reached, indeed, halfway down Strugwell Terrace, which was the main road out of respectable Notting Hill into the Mission area, the comments upon the Archdeacon’s appearance became so embarrassing that the dignitary looked at his watch and remarked that after all he feared he should not be able to spare the time that afternoon.

“But I am surprised,” he observed when his guide had brought him safely back into Notting Hill.  “I am surprised that the people are still so uncouth.  I had always understood that a great work of purification had been effected, that in fact—­er—­they were quite—­er—­cleaned up.”