There is also in the village a small country inn called the Davenant Arms, where the professor put up and where he made himself extraordinarily popular, because, finding himself among an assemblage of folk slow to see and slower still to think, he astonished them for four nights consecutively. The rustics still tell, and will continue to tell, so long as memory lasts, of the wonderful man who took their money out of their waistcoats, exchanged handkerchiefs, conveyed potatoes into strange coat-pockets, read their thoughts, picked out the cards they had chosen, made them take a card he had chosen whether they wanted it or not, caused balls of glass to vanish, changed halfpence into half-crowns, had a loaded pistol fired at himself and caught the ball, with other great marvels, all for nothing, to oblige and astonish the villagers, and for the good of the house. These are the recreations of his evening hours. The mornings he spent in the vestry of the old church searching the registers.
There was nothing professional about it, only the drudgery of clerk's work; to do it at all was almost beneath his dignity; yet he went through with it conscientiously, and restrained himself from inviting the sexton, who stayed with him, to lend him his handkerchief or to choose a card. Nor did he even hide a card in the sexton's pocket, and then convey it into the parish register. Nothing of the sort. He was sternly practical, and searched diligently. Nevertheless, he noted how excellent a place for the simple feasts would be the reading-desk. The fact is, that gentlemen of his profession never go to church, and, therefore, are ignorant of the uses of its various parts. On Sunday morning they lie in bed; on Sunday afternoon they have dinner, and perhaps the day's paper, and on Sunday evening they gather at a certain house of call for conjurers in Drury Lane, and practise on each other. There is, therefore, no room in the conjurer's life for church. Some remedy should be found for this by the bishops.
"What have I got to look for?" said the professor, as the sexton produced the old books. "Well, I've got to find what families there were living here a hundred years ago, or thereabouts, named Davenant, and what Christian names they had, and whether there were two children born and baptized here in one year, both bearing the name of Davenant."