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quarters, and crossing the room he dropped the fragments in the fire which burned brightly in the grate.

"Terrible! terrible!" This he said as he watched the pieces of paper being consumed by the flames. Then he seemed to endeavor to pull himself together." Well, I shall have to tell them. I must give reasons for the thing which I have done. The tale will have to travel so far, but"-the Dean pressed his lips together; few men's countenances were capable of assuming a severer aspect than Dean Pettifer's "I will make it my especial business to see that it goes no farther." He still seemed to hesitate before returning to the apartment in which his colleagues were awaiting him. "I must say that I never thought it of him. I have been always conscious. that in his latitudinarianism there was a certain element of danger. But I never dreamed that he was capable of such a thing as this-no, never!"

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It was with a distinctly unsatisfactory look upon his face that he made his reappearance in the little impromptu meeting. The criminatory leather bag he carried in his left hand. It is not impossible that those who were present became immediately conscious that with the Dean, since they had seen him last, all things had not gone well. The buzz of conversation, which had been audible as he opened the door, ceased upon his entrance, as though something in his bearing acted as a damper.

The somewhat awkward silence was broken by Canon Gorse.

"Well, was Boulter troublesome ?" The Dean laid the bag in front of him upon the table.

He was." The Dean carefully wiped his glasses. There was a suggestion of curious expectation in the eyes which were fixed upon him. Their owners already perceived that there was something in the air. Was it possible that the landlord of "The Rose and Crown" had behaved in the manner which, in the estimation of some persons, is a natural characteristic of individuals of his class, and had been guilty of actual violence in the sacred precincts of the Deanery? 66 He was troublesome in a sense for which, on this occa sion, I will simply say that I was unpre

pared; and to such a degree that I have given him what amounts to a virtual undertaking that his lease shall be renewed."

This was evidently not the sort of thing for which his listeners had been waiting-one could see it by their faces. Some of them changed color, and some of their jaws dropped open. Canon Gorse stared at the speaker, as if he found it difficult to believe that his own ears were capable of fulfilling their normal functions.

"Pettifer, impossible!" Perceiving that the word might seem too strong, he amended it. That is to say, how do you mean ?"

The Dean leaned over the table. His attitude, indeed his whole manner, suggested severity tempered by sorrow.

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Before I say anything further I wish to have an understanding with all of you that not one word of what I am about to utter will be breathed by any one of you to any creature living-and by that I mean neither to your wives, nor to your daughters, nor to any member of your households-that it will be received as though it came to you under the seal of the confessional.” There was silence. "If any one feels himself, for any cause whatever, unable to give such a pledge, then I must respectfully ask that person at once to withdraw."

No one did withdraw. No one said either Aye or Nay. So it may be supposed that the pledge which the Dean required was unanimously given. That the Dean understood that to be the case was evident. He held up the little leather bag in front of him as if it were some dreadful thing.

"This bag is the Bishop's-our beloved Bishop's bag. I know it, of my own knowledge, to be the bag which he had with him in the cathedral yesterday afternoon. It still contains the MS. of the sermon which the Bishop preached, and which we all rejoiced to hear. This bag has just been brought to me by the landlord of The Rose and Crown.' It was left, unintentionally left, on his premises by a person who, at the close of yesterday afternoon's service, went out of the Dean's door of the cathedral into one of Mr. Boulter's private bars, and there and then consumed a bottle of port wine."

The Dean ceased. There again was silence there well might be. The Dean again went on :

"A son of Mr. Boulter's is engaged on one of those scurrilous journals which are called society papers. Mr. Boulter proposed to send this story up to his son to print. On the understanding that the matter shall be confined to his own breast, I have deemed it wisdom to give him, as I have said, what virtually amounts to an undertaking that his lease shall be renewed. That is all I have to say. You will feel with me that it is too much. May I ask you not to speak of this matter even among yourselves, but, as I shall do, to do your best to blot it from your minds? Let us, if we can, forget that this thing has ever been. And now, with your permission, I will wish you all good day."

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They went like a flock of sheep, although there was almost a suspicion of pathos in the manner of their parting. When they were gone the Dean set himself to perform a task of the exceeding delicacy of which, to say the least, he was fully conscious. He was not a man to palter with what he deemed his duty. He was certainly not a man to shrink from doing a thing merely because the thing was disagreeable. Therefore, scarcely had the last of his colleagues turned his back on the Deanery when he put the little leather bag into a larger bag, and, with that larger bag grasped firmly in his hand, he strode off to the Palace.

He was going to make it his business to see that, without any further unnecessary loss of time, the Bishop came into what was, undoubtedly, his own again.

He found his lordship in the library. The Bishop was dictating to his secretary, the Rev. John Budgen. The secretary was seated at a table; the Bishop took his ease in a capacious armchair. As the Dean entered, his lordship greeted him with that genial heartiness for which the Bishop of Boundersville is famed. Not a trace of guilty consciousness about him anywhere-not a trace! It was with a sort of shock that the Dean noticed that there was nothing of the kind.

"How do, Pettifer? I'm doing what I call my morning task of stone-breaking-writing letters, by proxy, to a lot

of people who have more time on their hands than they know what to do with, and who, therefore, insist upon wasting mine. Anything particular to say to me?"

The Dean was, perhaps, too refined— the thing is possible. He was not only a fine scholar, he was a fine gentleman. He was of opinion that dignitaries, and particularly all dignitaries of the Church, should have the standard of manners which was peculiarly his own. The Bishop's heartiness, his rough-andready methods of expression, had always grated on his high-strung sensibilities; especially did they grate just then.

"I am bound to state, my lord, that what I have to say to you is of the first importance."

The Bishop looked at him a little quizzically. Possibly the Dean's exaggerated preciseness appealed to a sense which there is no reason why even a bishop should be without.

"Excuse me, Budgen; I'll ring when I'm ready." The secretary withdrew. "Now, Pettifer, fire away. Who killed the cat, and which cat's been killed?"

Such a fashion of speech was actually offensive to the Dean. Perhaps the spirit of mischief still lingered in the Bishop's breast; perhaps, at times, the Bishop found the Dean almost as trying as the Dean found him. Under the circumstances such a bearing on the part of the Bishop shocked the Dean almost into speechlessness. He gazed at his spiritual superior in a manner which, unless he was mistaken, made his lordship wince. Has your lordship not missed your lordship's sermon bag?" At the question his lordship plainly started.

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"My sermon-bag, Pettifer? What do you mean?"

My lord, I mean what I say." The Bishop was perturbed. Rising from his chair, he began to fidget about the room. Why do you ask?"

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me."

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Because it has been returned to

"Returned to you-no!"

"Yes, my lord; I have it here." The Dean produced the little bag from inside the larger one. He held it up in front of him as he had held it up in front of him at the impromptu meeting at the Deanery. "I will not ask how

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His lordship said, " By George !" and as he said it the Dean shrunk back as if he had received a blow.

"Mr. Boulter, as the price of his silence, extracted from me a promise that his lease should be renewed."

The Bishop woke up. He showed more alertness than he had hitherto displayed.

You promised him that his lease should be renewed-the lease of 'The Rose and Crown'?"

"I did. I thought it better that I should do so than that such a story should be told."

"Story? What story?"

The Dean, before he answered, indulged himself with a pause for consideration.

"My lord, if any word which I may utter seems lacking in respect, as coming from me to you, I entreat your pardon. My lord, when I heard that, after preaching a sermon, and so grand a sermon, upon total abstinence, you passed straight from the cathedral pulpit to the bar of a common public-house, and there drank so large a quantity of wine that, in the temporary forgetfulness which it occasioned, you left the sermon itself behind you in the bar, I felt that

it were better that I should promise almost anything than that such a story should be told."

As he listened the Bishop's countenance underwent a variety of changes. When the Dean had finished the Bishop dropped into a chair, and—laughed. Not a genteel simper, but a loud and long guffaw. The Dean felt that he could not endure such levity even from a bishop-his own bishop, too.

"My lord, in such a matter you may see occasion for merriment, but if you could have seen, at the Deanery, the faces of the cathedral clergy as I told to them this story-"

"Pettifer, what do you mean ?" Springing to his feet, the Bishop grasped the speaker by the arm. The Dean was startled.

"I say, if you could only have seen

their faces--'

"Do you mean to say that you have told this story to any one?"

"I was 66

constrained to state my reasons for giving such a promise to the landlord of The Rose and Crown.'"

"I hardly know if I ought not to strike you, Arthur Pettifer." "My lord !"

"I hardly know if I ought not to pillory you in the marketplace, and so compel you to do penance for your slanderous tongue. I have long been conscious of a certain pharisaical narrowness in your mental and in your moral outlook. I have seen in you what has seemed to me a hideous tendency to think the worst both of women and of men. But I never thought you capable of such gross obliquity of judgment as you yourself appear now to own to. Is it possible that you believed that such a story as you have told me could be true?"

The Dean had turned quite pale. He seemed to speak beneath his breath.

"Is it possible that Boulter lied ?"

"Is it possible, Arthur Pettifer, that you could believe that I-I, Ralph Ingall, with whose life's history you are as well acquainted almost as myself-could so perjure myself that, as God's minister, in God's house, I could pledge myself never again to let alcohol pass my lips in any shape or form, and that then, with that pledge still warm upon my lips, I could pass straight into a pothouse, and stupefy myself with wine ?"

"Was it was it Budgen, then ?"" "Budgen? Budgen? Pettifer, this is worse and worse! You know that Budgen has never touched a drop of alcoholic stimulant since the day that he was born. I will tell you the story of that bag so far as I know it myself. And I will see that your promise to the man Boulter is kept both in the spirit and the letter. I will place it upon you, as an enduring penance, that for the continued existence of his drinkshop you, and you alone, shall be responsible.

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The Dean was silent. He seemed to totter as a man who received a crushing blow. The Bishop paced up and down the room. Like an accusing spiritpossessed of a tolerable corporation-he poured out upon the Dean a curious, correct, and circumstantial history of the adventures of his sermon-bag.

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There was a man at my college whose name I need not mention. We were ordained together. I will put it gently, and will say that he did not take full advantage of his opportunities. I believe that, for some time now, he has ceased to exercise his clerical office. He has become a reporter for the ——— -the Bishop named a paper which all good Churchmen are supposed to read 66 and he came to me yesterday afternoon, into the vestry, after I had done my sermon. Possibly you may have seen him there. He told me that he had come down from town specially to report my serion. According to him. the train had been late, and he only arrived in time to hear a part. He asked me if I would let him see my notes. On the spur of the moment I handed him my bag, with the sermon in it. I told him that he might make, what he expressed a desire to make, a verbatim copy, and that he was then to return to me my property. I felt immediately afterward that I had, perhaps, not done the wisest possible thing. But it was then too late. After the story you have told me, what he did with bag and sermon I can guess.

While the Bishop was still speaking a servant appeared at the door.

"My lord, a person-I believe a

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ance. man.

The visitor in question was an individual of somewhat doubtful appearHe looked half cleric, half layHe was short and stout, and so far resembled the Bishop, but the resemblance went no farther. The Bishop, taking possession of the little leather bag which the Dean still retained, held it out to the new-comer.

"Well, sir, have you come to make another copy of my sermon? As you perceive, it has been returned to me, but not by you."

The stranger wiped his brow. He seemed more than a trifle embarrassed.

"I regret to say that I have not yet taken a copy of it, my lord. The fact is, my lord, that, as I told you yesterday, I left town without having lunched, and after leaving your lordship in the cathedral I felt so exhausted that I just stepped across the road to take a glass of wine-"

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"Quite so, sir. I understand too well. Since my sermon upon temperance has once been returned by the landlord of a tavern, I do not think that I care to run the risk of its reaching me by means of a similar channel a second time. So far as you are concerned, sir, my sermon must go unreported." The Bishop rang the bell. The servant reappeared."Dawes, show this gentleman out."

The gentleman was shown out, though it seemed, from his manner, that there still was something which he would have wished to say.

When he had gone the Bishop placed the little leather bag upon a table. He turned to the Dean. He looked at him, and he said, more in sorrow than in anger:

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Pettifer, how long does it take you to know a man?"-Cornhill Magazine.

BORES.

BY SIR HERBERT MAXWELL.

ONE of Montaigne's chief charms as an essayist consists in the levity with which he handles serious subjects, and the gravity he applies to light ones. But Montaigne wrote for a limited circle of friends; it would clearly be to set at defiance all the ordinary rules of prudence were one to ape his manner and discourse lightly before the general public about that of which we all move in dread. One may speak frivolously of the influenza, for it comes and goes according to inscrutable physical conditions, not likely to be affected by any irresponsible observations; or of the crack of doom, about which nothing is known, and everybody cherishes the hope that it is a long way off. But Bores are of us and in our midst; do we not stand in peril of them every hour? Nay, who shall say that he is free from the risk of himself developing some of their most terrible attributes? It is meet, then, in submitting to analysis the subject which gives this paper its title, to apply to it only such dispassionate and penetrating consideration as becomes a weighty matter.

Bores, then, pervade every habitable, or at least every civilized, part of the globe; penetrate every layer of society; threaten the integrity of every system of human intercourse. Though intensely gregarious they abhor each other's company, and cling to association with their natural prey-ordinary men and women. It is believed, therefore, that the bore might be extinguished, either by isolation or by forced association with his own kind, for he cannot exist, even through a single winter like the bear, by sucking his own paws; but neither experiment has yet been tried, for he is equipped with unerring instinct, whereby he is ever able to elude the most crafty devices for his destruction.

Among all the men of violence who have figured on this world's stage, none has openly avowed the purpose of carrying war against the Bores. Ezzolino da Romano, Vicar of Ferdinand the Second in Northern Italy, exceeded all other

tyrants, and Alexander the Third all other popes, in the sickening cruelty with which each pursued his purposethe secular ruffian aiming at selfish aggrandizement, the ecclesiastic animated by avarice, lust, and narrow nepotism; but neither they nor any of their competitors in the obscene calendar of crime have ever been suspected of the virtuous purpose of exterminating Bores.

Yet in casting about for some palliation or intelligible motive for the monstrous offences against humanity perpetrated by the medieval rulers of Church and State in Italy, it may be possible to detect, in reading between the lines of edicts condemning men and women to unspeakable tortures, some purpose, sedulously veiled, not unworthy of our sympathy. It may be that the family of princes whom Ezzolino_walled up in their country-house in Lombardy and left to perish of famine may have been of the generation of bores, for-publish it not in the streets of Askelon-the blood of that race has been known to run in royal veins. It is even more plausible to conceive that when Paulus the Second threw certain members of the Roman Academy-Platonists-into prison and tortured them to death upon the rack, he was impelled to do so, not by blind jealousy of erudition, but because he was goaded to distraction by their interminable talk, and was ridding society of creatures who were making life a grievous burden. If this were so, then, seeing that these despotic and, in other respects, fearless rulers were fain to conceal their real purpose, and, rather than incur the vengeance of a terrible race, accept the infamy of the sordid and vicious motives usually attributed to them, so much the more reason for a humble critic, clinging to his peaceful obscurity, to frame no phrase which, by its apparent levity, may bring him into closer relations with the powerful family which is the subject of his observations. To treat this subject with less than its proper gravity might involve him in relations from the trammels of

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