tratfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a
regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he
ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed
it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in
the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the
verger said, "We always do that, sir, to wake the duke."

A former young curate of Stoke being very anxious to do things
rubrically, insisted on the ring being put on the "fourth finger" at a
wedding he took. The woman resisted and said, "I would sooner die than
be married on my little finger." The curate said, "But the rubric says
so," whereupon the _deus ex machina_ appeared in the shape of the parish
clerk, who stepped forward and said, "In these cases, sir, the thoomb
counts as a digit."

A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking
into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't
go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman. "I'm put here to stop you,"
said the man. "Oh! I see," said the gentleman; "you're what they call
the _rude_ screen, aren't you?"

* * * * *

A clergyman in the diocese of Wakefield told me that when first he came
to the parish he found things in a very neglected state, and among other
changes he introduced an early celebration of the Holy Communion. An old
clerk collected the offertory, and when he brought it up to the
clergyman he said, "There's eight on 'em, but two 'asn't paid."

* * * * *

A verger was showing a lady over a church when she asked him if the
vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."

* * * * *

A verger showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man
and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not
know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh, yes, sir, he
werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."

* * * * *

On my first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the
vestry and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse
me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B. To prevent
undue inferences I am five feet nine inches in height.)

* * * * *

One of the speakers at the meeting of the Catholic Truth Society