arrive in London this afternoon. I don't believe in wasting time and I want a good long talk with you before you begin your work with us. To-night I am due at Bethnal Green to give a lecture. I shall be driving home about ten and I'll call at Lincoln's Inn on my way. If this will not be too late for you, we can then talk matters over. —
Sincerely yours in Christ, Arthur Ripon."
Basil passed the note to Spence.
"That'll be all right," he said. "I shall be at work, and Hands will be in his own room. What a man Ripon is! He's just the incarnation of breezy energy. Brusque, unconventional as Dr. Parker himself, but one of the sincerest Christians and best men I ever met or ever shall meet. He signs his note like that because he means it. He hates cant, and what in some men would appear cant, or at least a rather unnecessary form of ending, is to him just an ordinary every-day fact. You will get on with Father Ripon, Basil, I'm sure. You'll get to love the man as we all do. I never knew any one so absolutely joyous as he is. He's about the happiest man in town, I should say. His private income is nearly two thousand a year, and his living's worth something too, and yet I don't suppose his own expenses are fifty pounds. He lives more or less on porridge — when he remembers to eat at all — and his only extravagance is hansom cabs, so that he can cram more work into the day."
They all laughed, and Spence began to tell anecdotes of the famous "ritualistic" parson who daily filled more stomachs, saved more souls, and shocked more narrow-minded people than any two men in Crockford.
At seven o'clock they all went out together — Spence to his adjacent office in Fleet Street, the other two to dine quietly at the University Club.
"London depresses me," said Hands, when they were
