“I suppose Mr. Hardcap’s best broadcloth coat and Mrs. Hardcap’s black silk gown last them a good many years.  Isn’t it so, Mr. Hardcap?”

Mr. Hardcap confessed that it was.

“The minister has to wear broadcloth, Mr. Hardcap, all the week.  He must be always in society dress.  So must his wife.  With the utmost economy their bill for clothes mounts up to a frightful sum.  I know, for I have tried it.”

“There is something in that,” said Mr. Hardcap.

Old Father Hyatt is a great favorite with Mr. Hardcap, as indeed he is with all of us.  And no one ever accused Father Hyatt of extravagance.

“I know a city clergyman,” continued the old man, “who always preaches in a silk gown, though he is a Congregationalist.  ’It saves my coat’, said he to me once in explanation.  ’I can wear a seedy coat in the pulpit and no one is the wiser.’  ‘But,’ said I, ’how about the silk gown?’ ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘the ladies furnish the gown.’”

We laughed at the parson’s shrewdness.  Even Mr. Hardcap smiled.

“And there are some other items, too, gentlemen,” added Father Hyatt, “which I hope you will consider.  The churches don’t ordinarily know about them.  At least they do not consider them.  The company item alone is an enormous one.  Not once in six months now do I have a friend to pass the night with me.  But when I was settled here my spare room always had a guest, and half the time my stable an extra horse.  Every benevolent agent, every traveling minister, every canvasser makes straight for the minister’s house.  He has to keep an inn for the benefit of the parish, and gets no pay for it.”

“Cut them off,” said Mr. Hardcap.  But he said it good naturedly.

“‘Given to hospitality,’ says the Apostle,” replied Father Hyatt.

“Well,” said Deacon Goodsole, with a sigh, “we ought to pay the fifteen hundred a year.  It’s none too much.  But I don’t see where it’s coming from.”

“Oh! never you fear,” said Mr. Wheaton.  “Mr. Mapleson is worth fifteen hundred, and we’ll have to pay it.  We’ll get it somehow.  Write him it’s fifteen hundred, Mr. Laicus.  You’ll be safe enough.”

With which our informal conference came to an end.  But I have not written.  I wonder if Jim Wheaton runs the Koniwasset Coal Company, and the Newtown railroad, and the Wheathedge bank on the “somehow” principle.  I wish had asked him.  I am glad I have no stock in them.

CHAPTER XXII.

Ecclesiastical Financiering.

But though I have no stock in the Koniwasset Coal Company or the Newtown railroad or the Wheathedge Bank, I have some in the Calvary Presbyterian Church, and I decidedly object on consideration to carry on that institution on the “somehow” principle.  So I intimated as much to Mr. Wheaton the other day, after thinking the whole matter over, and taking counsel with Jennie about it.