But, my word,
wouldn't I like to punch into him when he gives us that pea-soup more
than four times a week. Chronic, I call it. Well, if he doesn't give us
a jolly good blow out on my name-day next week I really will punch into
him. Old Brother Flatface, as I called him the other day. And he wasn't
half angry either. Didn't we have sport last second of May! I took a
party of them all round Hythe and Folkestone. No end of a spree!"
Mark was soon too much occupied with his duties as guestmaster to lament
with Brother Athanasius the end of the Sandgate priory. The Reverend
Father's drawing-room addresses were sending fresh visitors down every
week to see for themselves the size of the foundation that required
money, and more money, and more money still to keep it going. In the old
Chatsea days guests who visited the Mission House were expected to
provide entertainment for their hosts. It mattered not who they were,
millionaires or paupers, parsons or laymen, undergraduates or
board-school boys, they had to share the common table, face the common
teasing, and help the common task. Here at the Abbey, although the
guests had much more opportunity of intercourse with the brethren than
would have been permitted in a less novel monastic house, they were
definitely guests, from whom nothing was expected beyond observance of
the rules for guests.
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