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                          THE BISHOP’S APRON




                          THE BISHOP’S APRON

                        A STUDY IN THE ORIGINS
                           OF A GREAT FAMILY

                                  BY

                             W. S. MAUGHAM

             AUTHOR OF “LIZA OF LAMBETH,” “MRS. CRADDOCK,”
                         “THE MERRY-GO-ROUND”


                                LONDON

                        CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.

                                 1906




                          THE BISHOP’S APRON




I


The world takes people very willingly at the estimate in which they hold
themselves. With a fashionable bias for expression in a foreign tongue
it calls modesty _mauvaise honte_; and the impudent are thought merely
to have a proper opinion of their merit. But Ponsonby was really an
imposing personage. His movements were measured and noiseless; and he
wore the sombre garb of a gentleman’s butler with impressive dignity. He
was a large man, flabby and corpulent, with a loose, smooth skin. His
face, undisturbed by the rapid play of expression, which he would have
thought indecorous, had a look of placid respectability; his eyes, with
their puffy lower lids, rested on surrounding objects heavily; and his
earnest, obsequious voice gave an impression of such overwhelming piety
that your glance, involuntarily, fell to his rotund calves for the
gaiters episcopal.

He looked gravely at the table set out for luncheon, while Alfred, the
footman, walked round it, placing bread in each napkin.

“Is Tommy Tiddler coming to-day, Mr. Ponsonby?” he asked.

“His lordship is expected,” returned the butler, with a frigid stare.

He emphasised the aspirate to mark his disapproval of the flippancy
wherewith his colleague referred to a person who was not only the
brother of his master