Meet Mr Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse Page A

from the
shoulders, elaborately embroidered with a pattern and with orphreys. And you
can argue as much as you like, young Pieface, but you can’t get away from the
fact that there are too many orphreys on yours. And what I’m telling you is
that you’ve jolly well got to switch off a few of those orphreys or you’ll get
it in the neck.”
    The vicar’s eyes glittered furiously.
    “Is that so?” he said. “Well, I just won’t,
so there! And it’s like your cheek coming here and trying to high-hat me. You
seem to have forgotten that I knew you when you were an inky-faced kid at
school, and that, if I liked, I could tell the world one or two things about
you which would probably amuse it.”
    “My past is an open book.”
    “Is it?” The vicar laughed malevolently. “Who
put the white mouse in the French master’s desk?”
    The bishop started.
    “Who put jam in the dormitory prefect’s
bed?” he retorted.
    “Who couldn’t keep his collar clean?”
    “Who used to wear a dickey?” The bishop’s
wonderful organ-like voice, whose softest whisper could be heard throughout a vast
cathedral, rang out in tones of thunder.
    “Who was sick at the house supper?”
    The vicar quivered from head to foot. His
rubicund face turned a deeper crimson.
    “You know jolly well,” he said, in shaking
accents, “that there was something wrong with the turkey. Might have upset any
one.”
    “The only thing wrong with the turkey was
that you ate too much of it. If you had paid as much attention to developing
your soul as you did to developing your tummy, you might by now,” said the
bishop, “have risen to my own eminence.”
    “Oh, might I?”
    “No, perhaps I am wrong. You never had the
brain.”
    The vicar uttered another discordant
laugh.
    “Brain is good! We know all about your
eminence, as you call it, and how you rose to that eminence.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You are a bishop. How you became one we
will not inquire.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What I say. We will not inquire.”
    “Why don’t you inquire?”
    “Because,” said the vicar, “it is better
not!”
    The bishop’s self-control left him. His
face contorted with fury, he took a step forward. And simultaneously Augustine
sprang lightly into the room.
    “Now, now, now!” said Augustine. “Now,
now, now, now, now!”
    The two men stood transfixed. They stared
at the intruder dumbly.
    “Come, come!” said Augustine.
    The vicar was the first to recover. He
glowered at Augustine.
    “What do you mean by jumping through my
window?” he thundered. “Are you a curate or a harlequin?”
    Augustine met his gaze with an unfaltering
eye.
    “I am a curate,” he replied, with a
dignity that well became him. “And, as a curate, I cannot stand by and see two
superiors of the cloth, who are moreover old schoolfellows, forgetting
themselves. It isn’t right. Absolutely not right, my dear old superiors of the
cloth.”
    The vicar bit his lip. The bishop bowed
his head.
    “Listen,” proceeded Augustine, placing a
hand on the shoulder of each. “I hate to see you two dear good chaps quarrelling
like this.”
    “He started it,” said the vicar, sullenly.
    “Never mind who started it.” Augustine
silenced the bishop with a curt gesture as he made to speak. “Be sensible, my
dear fellows. Respect the decencies of debate. Exercise a little good-humoured
give-and-take. You say,” he went on, turning to the bishop, “that our good
friend here has too many orphreys on his chasuble?”
    I do. And I stick to it.”
    “Yes, yes, yes. But what,” said Augustine,
soothingly, “are a few orphreys between friends? Reflect! You and our worthy
vicar here were at school together. You are bound by the sacred ties of the old
Alma Mater. With him you sported on the green. With him you shared a crib and
threw inked darts in the hour supposed to be devoted to the study of French. Do
these things mean nothing to you? Do these memories touch no chord?” He