‘Goodness!  How do you know that?’ asked Clancy.

‘I know many things,’ answered Merton.  ’I am not sure which of you is Mr. Bathe.’

Clancy presented Mr. Bathe, a florid young evangelist, who blushed.

‘Armenia is still suffering, Mr. Bathe; and Mr. Brooke,’ said Merton, detecting him by the Method of Residues, ’the oven is still hot in the New Hebrides.  What have you got to say for yourselves?’

The curates shifted nervously on their chairs.

‘We see, Merton,’ said Clancy, ’that you know a good deal which we did not know ourselves till lately.  In fact, we did not know each other till the Church Congress at Leamington.  Then the other men came to tea at my rooms, and saw—­’

‘A portrait of a lady; each of you possessed a similar portrait,’ said Merton.

‘How the dev—­I mean, how do you know that?’

‘By a simple deductive process,’ said Merton.  ‘There were also letters,’ he said.  Here a gurgle from behind the screen was audible to Merton.

‘We did not read each others’ letters,’ said Clancy, blushing.

‘Of course not,’ said Merton.

‘But the handwriting on the envelopes was identical,’ Clancy went on.

‘Well, and what can our Society do for you?’

’Why, we saw your advertisements, never guessed they were yours, of course, Pussy, and—­none of us is a man of the world—­’

‘I congratulate you,’ said Merton.

’So we thought we had better take advice:  it seemed rather a lark, too, don’t you know?  The fact is—­you appear to have divined it somehow—­we find that we are all engaged to the same lady.  We can’t fight, and we can’t all marry her.’

’In Thibet it might be practicable:  martyrdom might also be secured there,’ said Merton.

‘Martyrdom is not good enough,’ said Clancy.

‘Not half,’ said Bathe.

‘A man has his duties in his own country,’ said Brooke.

’May I ask whether in fact your sorrows at this discovery have been intense?’ asked Merton.

‘I was a good deal cut up at first,’ said Clancy, ’I being the latest recruit.  Bathe had practically given up hope, and had seen some one else.’  Mr. Bathe drooped his head, and blushed.  ’Brooke laughed.  Indeed we all laughed, though we felt rather foolish.  But what are we to do?  Should we write her a Round Robin?  Bathe says he ought to be the man, because he was first man in, and I say I ought to be the man, because I am not out.’

‘I would not build much on that,’ said Merton, and he was sure that he heard a rustle behind the screen, and a slight struggle.  Julia was trying to emerge, restrained by Miss Crofton.

‘I knew,’ said Clancy, ’that there was something—­that there were other fellows.  But that I learned, more or less, under the seal of confession, so to speak.’

‘At a picnic,’ said Merton.