on a Wednesday. I teach in the Church Day School on Wednesday mornings, a proceeding that causes me acute nervousness and leaves me unsettled for the rest of the day.
“Well, I suppose he must have some fun,” said my wife, with the air of trying to sum up the position impartially. “Nobody flutters round him and calls him the dear vicar, and embroiders awful slippers for him, and gives him bed-socks for Christmas. Both his wife and his daughter are fed up to the teeth with him. I suppose it makes him happy to feel important somewhere.”
“He needn’t be offensive about it,” I said with some heat. “I don’t think he quite realized the implications of what he was saying. He wants to go over all the Church accounts—in case of defalcations—that was the word he used. Defalcations! Does he suspect me of embezzling the Church funds?”
“Nobody would suspect you of anything, darling,” said Griselda. “You’re so transparently above suspicion that really it would be a marvellous opportunity. I wish you’d embezzle the S.P.G. funds. I hate missionaries—I always have.”
I would have reproved her for that sentiment, but Mary entered at that moment with a partially cooked rice pudding. I made a mild protest, but Griselda said that the Japanese always ate half-cooked rice and had marvellous brains in consequence.
“I dare say,” she said, “that if you had a rice pudding like this every day till Sunday, you’d preach the most marvellous sermon.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said with a shudder.
“Protheroe’s coming over tomorrow evening and we’re going over the accounts together,” I went on. “I must finish preparing my talk for the