"You are wasting our
time," she said sharply. "You know as well as I do that you are talking
nonsense."
"I don't," said Felix. "Taking the gentlemanly professions all round,
I know of no men who are so eager to get money, and who have so few
scruples about how they get it, as the parsons. Where is there a man in
any other profession who perpetually worries you for money?--who holds
the bag under your nose for money?--who sends his clerk round from
door to door to beg a few shillings of you, and calls it an 'Easter
offering'? The parson does all this. Bradstock is a parson. I put it
logically. Bowl me over, if you can."
Mr. Troy attempted to "bowl him over," nevertheless. Lady Lydiard wisely
interposed.
"When a man persists in talking nonsense," she said, "silence is the
best answer; anything else only encourages him." She turned to Felix.
"I have a question to ask you," she went on. "You will either give me
a serious reply, or wish me good-morning." With this brief preface,
she made her inquiry as to the wisdom and possibility of engaging the
services of the French police.
Felix took exactly the view of the matter which had been already
expressed by Mr. Troy. "Superior in intelligence," he said, "but not
superior in courage, to the English police. Capable of performing
wonders on their own ground and among their own people. But, my dear
aunt, the two most dissimilar nations on the face of the earth are the
English and the French. The French police may speak our language--but
they are incapable of understanding our national character and our
national manners.
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