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"You have already been sufficiently punished, I hope," said the Missioner, "by the humiliations you have inflicted on yourself both outside and inside this house." "My thoughts are always humiliating," said Mr. Mousley. "I think perhaps that nowadays these humiliating thoughts are my chief temptation to drink.
At this moment, candle in hand, and in a white flannel nightgown looking larger than ever, Father Rowley appeared in the gallery above and leaning over demanded who was there. "Is that Father Rowley?" Mr. Mousley inquired with intense courtesy. "Or do my eyes deceive me?
"Mark, go to bed. I will see Mr. Mousley to his room." "Several years ago," said the drunken priest. "I went with an old friend to see Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. The resemblance between Father Rowley and Miss Ellen Terry is very remarkable. Good-night, Lidderdale, I am perfectly comfortable on this mat. Good-night."
Yes. . . ." Mr. Mousley tried to focus his glassy eyes upon the arcana of spiritualism, rocking ambiguously the while upon the kerb. Mark murmured something more about the need for going in quietly. "It's very kind of you to come out and talk to me like this," the drunken priest went on.
Mark watched its progress, amused at the extraordinary amount of trouble it was giving itself, until one tack was brought to a sharp conclusion by a lamp-post to which the figure clung long enough to be recognized as that of the Reverend George Edward Mousley, who had been tacking like this to make the harbour of the Mission House.
Mark thought he had better go out and offer his services as pilot, because Mousley was beginning to sing an extraordinary song in which the tune and the words of Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you, had got mixed up with O happy band of pilgrims. "Look here, Mr. Mousley, you mustn't sing now," said Mark taking hold of the arm with which the drunkard was trying to beat time.
No, I'm only amused at my optimism." There was a knock on the door. "I expect that is Mr. Mousley," said Mark. "I'll leave you with him." "No, don't go away," said the Missioner. "If Mousley didn't mind your seeing him as he was last night, there's no reason why this morning he should mind your hearing my comments upon his behaviour." The tap on the door was repeated.
He must make up his mind quickly, because even with the zigzag course Mousley was taking he would soon be ringing the bell of the Mission House, which meant that Father Rowley would be woken up and go down to let him in.
"Much too late. Come along." "If I had a piece of sugar he'd follow us upstairs. You'll find a horse will go anywhere after a piece of sugar. It is a horse, isn't it? Not a donkey? Because if it was a donkey he would want a thistle, and I don't know where I can get a thistle at this time of night. I say, did you prod me in the stomach then with anything?" asked Mr. Mousley severely.
"You wrote that yesterday afternoon?" Mr. Mousley exclaimed. "And the instant afterwards I went out and got drunk?" "You mean you took a pick-me-up and two glasses of beer," corrected Father Rowley. "No, no, no, it wasn't a pick-me-up. I went out and got drunk on brandy quite deliberately." Father Rowley looked quickly across at Mark, who hastily left the two priests together.
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