"Here we are," said Mark, for by this time he had persuaded Mr. Mousley to put his foot upon the step of the front door.
"You managed the house very well," said the clergyman. "It's extraordinary how a house will take to some people and not to others. Now I can do anything I like with dogs, and you can do anything you like with houses. But it's no good patting or stroking a house. You've got to manage a house quite differently to that. You've got to keep a house's accounts. You haven't got to keep a dog's accounts."
They were in the gymnasium by now, which by the light of Mark's small candle loomed as vast as a church.
"Don't talk as you go upstairs," Mark admonished.
"No, no, no," said Mark. "It's the horse. Come along."
"A horse?" Mousley echoed. "Well, I can manage horses too. Come here, Dobbin. If I'd known we were going to meet a horse I should have brought back some sugar with me. I suppose it's too late to go back and buy some sugar now?"
"Yes, yes," said Mark impatiently. "Much too late. Come along."
"If I had a piece of sugar he'd follow us upstairs. You'll find a horse will go anywhere after a piece of sugar. It is a horse, isn't it? Not a donkey? Because if it was a donkey he would want a thistle, and I don't know where I can get a thistle at this time of night. I say, did you prod me in the stomach then with anything?" asked Mr. Mousley severely.
"No, no," said Mark. "Come along, it was the parallel bars."
"I've not been near any bars to-night, and if you are suggesting that I've been in bars you're making an insinuation which I very much resent, an insinuation which I resent most bitterly, an insinuation which I should not allow anybody to make without first pointing out that it was an insinuation."
"Do come down off that ladder," Mark said.
"I beg your pardon, Lidderdale. I was under the impression for the moment that I was going upstairs. I have really been so confused by Confucius and by the extraordinary behaviour of the house to-night, recoiling from me as it did, that for the moment I was under the impression that I was going upstairs."
At this moment Mr. Mousley fell from the ladder, luckily on one of the gymnasium mats.
"I do think it's a most ridiculous habit," he said, "not to place a doormat in what I might describe as a suitable cavity. The number of times in my life that I've fallen over doormats simply because people will not take the trouble to make the necessary depression in the floor with which to contain such a useful domestic receptacle you would scarcely believe. I must have fallen over thousands of doormats in my life," he shouted at the top of his voice.