"Thank you, Browne. I much regret your natural annoyance. You may
leave the sequel to me."
So Browne hooked it and Richmond minimus was left alone with the Doctor.
The Doctor said nothing for some time. Then he sighed, and looked at
his sermon, and rose and went to the cane corner.
"What led you to do this outrageous thing, impious boy?" he asked.
"I felt called to do it, sir," said Richmond minimus. "I've preached
seven times now, and more fellows come each time."
"I am aware that you are probably destined for the sacred calling," said
Dunstan solemnly, "and your theological papers have always led me to
regard you as a promising recruit, Richmond minimus; but preaching, or I
should say a travestie, a bizarre burlesque of that difficult branch of
the pastor's calling! And to select one of your masters for a theme!"
"He seemed a good subject to show what we oughtn't to do, sir. In
preaching, of course, you want----"
The Doctor looked his most awful look, and Richmond minimus dried up.
"Probably what I want in preaching is as well known to me as to you,
preposterous youth!" said the Doctor. "The present question is not what
I want in preaching, but what I want in boys; and what I expect from
boys after they have been for the space of three years under my personal
care and control. To play the buffoon before your fellows is in any
case degrading; but to do it under pretence of advancing their moral
welfare--to preach in jest--this is perilously akin to profanity. Only a
vitiated spirit of secularism can explain so gross an action. My heart
bleeds when I think upon your parents, Richmond minimus, and upon your
brothers who worthily upheld the honour and dignity of Merivale, and
now, in the wider field of life, are bringing forth the good fruit sowed
within these scholastic cloisters."
The Doctor always spoke like this about chaps who had left.
"Then," said Richmond minimus, "the usual event happened and, as you
know, on the next morning I had, in addition, to tell Browne I was sorry
publicly after prayers."
"One thing," I said. "What was that 'fifthly and lastly' that you were
prevented from preaching?"
But Richmond didn't remember; so it was lost.
"Shall you ever preach again here?" I asked him.