The clergyman was one of those odd types that oscillate between remote
country towns in England and the conduct of English Church services
on mutual terms in enterprising hotels abroad, a tremulous, obstinate
little being with sporadic hairs upon his face, spectacles, a red button
nose, and aged black raiment. He was evidently enormously impressed by
my uncle's monetary greatness, and by his own inkling of our identity,
and he shone and brimmed over with tact and fussy helpfulness. He
was eager to share the watching of the bedside with me, he proffered
services with both hands, and as I was now getting into touch with
affairs in London again, and trying to disentangle the gigantic details
of the smash from the papers I had succeeded in getting from Biarritz,
I accepted his offers pretty generously, and began the studies in modern
finance that lay before me. I had got so out of touch with the old
traditions of religion that I overlooked the manifest possibility of
his attacking my poor, sinking vestiges of an uncle with theological
solicitudes.
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