An exchange from Waugh's "Decline and Fall"

[archdiocesan]

Provided without further comment.

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“He was talking very excitedly to me,” said the Vicar, “about some apparatus for warming a church in Worthing and about the Apostolic Claims of the Church of Abyssinia. I confess I could not follow him clearly. He seems deeply interested in Church matters. Are you quite sure he is right in the head? I have noticed again and again since I have been in the Church that lay interest in ecclesiastical matters is often a prelude to insanity.”

“Drink, pure and simple,” said the Colonel. “I wonder where he got it? I could do with a spot of whisky.”