V

Again at another time we found ourselves in Canterbury, where Toole amused himself for a whole afternoon by spreading a report that the Government were going to move the Cathedral from Canterbury to Margate, giving as a reason that the latter place was so much larger. Strange to say that there were some who believed it. Toole worked systematically. He went into barbers’ shops—three of them in turn, and in each got shaved. As I wore a beard I had to be content with having my hair cut; it came out pretty short in the end. As he underwent the shaving operation he brought conversation round to the subject of the moving of the Cathedral. Then we went into shops without end where he bought all sorts of things—collars, braces, socks, caps, fruits and spice for making puddings, children’s toys, arrowroot, ginger wine, little shawls, sewing cotton, emery paper, hair oil, goloshes, corn plasters—there was no end to the variety of his purchases, each of which was an opening for some fresh variant of the coming change.

At one other visit to Canterbury we came across in the ancient Cathedral an insolent verger. Toole, who was, for all his fun, a man of reverent nature, was as usual with him grave and composed in the church. The verger, taking him for some stranger of the bourgeois class, thought him a fit subject to impress. When Toole spoke of the new Dean who had been lately appointed the man said in a flippant way:

“We don’t care much for him. We don’t think we’ll keep him!”

This was enough for Toole. He looked over at me in a way I understood and forthwith began to ask questions:

“Did you, may I ask, sir, preach this morning?”

“No. Not this morning. I don’t preach this week.” We knew then that that verger was to be “had on toast.” Toole went on:

“Do you preach on next Sunday, sir? I should like to hear you.”

“Well, no! I don’t think I’ll preach on Sunday.”

“Will you preach the Sunday after?”

“Perhaps.”

“May I ask, sir, are you the Dean?”

“No. I am not the Dean!” His manner implied that he was something more.

“Are you the Sub-Dean?”

“Not the Sub-Dean.” His answers were getting short.

“Are you what they call a Canon?”

“No, I should not exactly call myself a Canon.”

“Are you a minor Canon?”

“No!”

“Are you a precentor?”

“Not exactly that.”

“Are you in the choir?”

“No.”

“May I ask you what you are then, sir?”—this was said with great deference. The man, cornered at last, thought it best to speak the truth, so he answered:

“I am what they call a ‘verger!’”

“Quite so!” said Toole gravely; “I thought you were only a servant by the insolent way you spoke of your superiors!”

The remainder of that personal conduction was made in silence.