Well, sir, we will go to-night.

You are not ashamed of putting on a smock-frock?
For if you go as a gentleman, you will hear no more of them than a hawk does of a covey of partridges.' So the expedition was agreed on, and Lancelot and the keeper parted until the evening.
But why had the vicar been rambling on all that morning through pouring rain, on the top of the London coach?
And why was he so anxious in his inquiries as to the certainty of catching the up- train?
Because he had had considerable experience in that wisdom of the serpent, whose combination with the innocence of the dove, in somewhat ultramontane proportions, is recommended by certain late leaders of his school.

He had made up his mind, after his conversation with the Irishman, that he must either oust Lancelot at once, or submit to be ousted by him, and he was now on his way to Lancelot's uncle and trustee, the London banker.
He knew that the banker had some influence with his nephew, whose whole property was invested in the bank, and who had besides a deep respect for the kindly and upright practical mind of the veteran Mammonite.

And the vicar knew, too, that he himself had some influence with the banker, whose son Luke had been his pupil at college.

And when the young man lay sick of a dangerous illness, brought on by debauchery, into which weakness rather than vice had tempted him, the vicar had watched and prayed by his bed, nursed him as tenderly as a mother, and so won over his better heart that he became completely reclaimed, and took holy orders with the most earnest intention to play the man therein, as repentant rakes will often do, half from a mere revulsion to asceticism, half from real gratitude for their deliverance.