* * * * *

As soon as he was washed and dressed, he sat down in a chair before the fire; but almost immediately there came a tap on his door, and the somewhat inflamed face of the Major looked in.

“Frankie?” he whispered, and, reassured, came in and closed the door behind. (He looked very curiously small and unimportant, thought Frank.  Perhaps it was the black suit that had been lent him.)

“By gad, Frankie ... we’re in clover,” he whispered, still apparently under the impression that somehow he was in church.  “There are some other chaps, you know, off the roads too, but they’re down by the lodge somewhere.” (He broke off and then continued.) “I’ve got such a queer Johnnie in my room—­ah! you’ve got one, too.”

He went up to examine a small plaster statue of a saint above the prie-dieu.

“It’s all right, isn’t it?” said Frank sleepily.

“And there’s another Johnnie’s name on the door.  The Rev. S. Augustine, or something.”

He tip-toed back to the fire, lifted his tails, and stood warming himself with a complacent but nervous smile.

(Frank regarded him with wonder.)

“What do all the Johnnies do here?” asked the Major presently.  “Have a rare old time, I expect.  I bet they’ve got cellars under here all right.  Just like those chaps in comic pictures, ain’t it?”

(Frank decided it was no use to try to explain.)

The Major babbled on a minute or two longer, requiring no answer, and every now and then having his roving eye caught by some new marvel.  He fingered a sprig of yew that was twisted into a crucifix hung over the bed. ("Expect it’s one of those old relics,” he said, “some lie or other.”) He humorously dressed up the statue of the saint in a pocket-handkerchief, and said:  “Let us pray,” in a loud whisper, with one eye on the door.  And all the while there still lay on him apparently the impression that if he talked loud or made any perceptible sound he would be turned out again.

He was just beginning a few steps of a noiseless high-kicking dance when there was a tap at the door, and he collapsed into an attitude of weak-kneed humility.  Dom Hildebrand came in.

“If you’re ready,” he said, “we might go down to supper.”

* * * * *

Frank relates in his diary that of all else in the monastery, apart from the church, the refectory and its manners impressed him most. (How easy it is to picture it when one has once seen the ceremonies!)

He sat at a center table, with the Major opposite (looking smaller than ever), before a cloth laid with knife, spoon and forks.  All round the walls on a low dais, with their backs against them, sat a row of perhaps forty monks, of every age, kind and condition.  The tables were bare wood, laid simply with utensils and no cloths, with a napkin in each place.  At the end opposite the door there sat at a table all alone a big, portly, kindly-faced man, of a startlingly fatherly appearance, clean-shaven, gray-haired, and with fine features.  This was the Abbot.  Above him hung a crucifix, with the single word “Sitio” beneath it on a small black label.