‘Where are they?’ asked Mr. Browne defiantly.

‘In London, Paris, Milan, said Mr. Bartell D’Arcy warmly. ‘I suppose Caruso, for example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have mentioned.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Mr. Browne. ‘But I may tell you I doubt it strongly.’

‘O, I’d give anything to hear Caruso sing,’ said Mary Jane.

‘For me,’ said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, ‘there was only one tenor. To please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him.’

‘Who was he, Miss Morkan?’ asked Mr. Bartell D’Arcy politely.

‘His name,’ said Aunt Kate, ‘was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his prime and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man’s throat.’

‘Strange,’ said Mr. Bartell D’Arcy. ‘I never even heard of him.’

‘Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right,’ said Mr. Browne. ‘I remember hearing of old Parkinson, but he’s too far back for me.’

‘A beautiful, pure, sweet, mellow English tenor, said Aunt Kate with enthusiasm.

Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel’s wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Mid-way down they were held up by Mary Jane, who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding was of Aunt Julia’s making, and she received praises for it from all quarters. She herself said that it was not quite brown enough.

‘Well, I hope, Miss Morkan,’ said Mr. Browne, ‘that I’m brown enough for you because, you know, I’m all brown.’

All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor’s care. Mrs. Malins, who had been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.

‘And do you mean to say,’ asked Mr. Browne incredulously, ‘that a chap can go down there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the land and then come away without paying anything?’

‘O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave,’ said Mary Jane.

‘I wish we had an institution like that in our Church,’ said Mr. Browne candidly.

He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.

‘That’s the rule of the order,’ said Aunt Kate firmly.

‘Yes, but why?’ asked Mr. Browne.