mistake. Our Fathers in God should
have their own peculiar colors, as they have their own peculiar and
tremendous responsibilities. But I'll tell you what I did. I kissed the
bishop's ring, and I think I left a deep indentation on his Lordship's
little finger.

The Master of Conference detained me.

"I'm beginning to like that young fellow of yours," he said. "He appears
to have more piety than learning."

"He has both," I replied.

"So he has; so he has, indeed. What are we coming to? What are we coming
to, at all?"

"Then I suppose," I said, "I needn't mind that bell?"

"What bell?"

"The bell that I was to tie around his neck."

"Father Dan, you have too long a memory; good by! I'm glad you've not
that infidel, Duff, as curate."

We went home at a rapid pace, my curate and I, both too filled with
thought to speak much. At last, I said, shaking up:--

"I'm beginning to think that I, too, took forty winks during the reading
of that paper."

"I think about forty minutes of winks, Father Dan," he replied. "You
slept steadily for forty minutes out of the forty-five."

"That's a calumnious exaggeration," I said; "don't I remember all about
Job, and Daniel, and the synoptic Gospels."

"These were a few preliminaries," replied my curate.

"But who was that undignified and ungentlemanly fellow that woke us all
with such a snore? I suppose it was Delaney?"

"No; it was not Delaney. He was too agitated after his rencontre with
the chairman to fall asleep."

"Indeed? Perhaps it would be as well for me not to pursue the subject
further. This will be a great sermon of yours."

"I'm very nervous about it," he said, shaking the reins. "It is not the
sermon I mind, but all the dislike and jealousy and rancor it will
cause."

"You can avoid all that," I replied.

"How?"

"Break down hopelessly and they'll all love you. That is the only road
to popularity--to make a fool of yourself."

"I did that to-day," he said. "I made a most determined cast-iron
resolution not to open my lips unless I was interrogated, but I could
not stand that perkiness and self-sufficiency of Duff, especially when
it developed into irreverence."

"If you had not spoken I should have challenged him; and I am not sure I
would have been so polite as you were. The thing was unpardonable."

We dined at Father Letheby's. Just after dinner there was a timid knock
at the door. He went out, and returned in a few minutes looking
despondent