"
"If it were not for the cursed bore of keeping up the farce beyond
the possibility of keeping up the fun, such a rig as this would
be incomparably pleasant; but"--yawning--"that's the devil! I get
monstrous tired of a joke that needs dry nursing!"
Such were the last muttered words of Parson Stevens before he
yielded himself up to his slumbers. Good young man--charitable old
ladies--gullible enough, if not charitable! But the professions
need such people, and we must not quarrel with them!
CHAPTER VIII.
PAROCHIAL PERFORMANCES.
The poor, conceited blackguards of this ungracious earth have
a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in
nature, corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their
own little spheres. If we have a toothache, we look for a change
of weather; our rheumatism is a sure sign that God has made his
arrangements to give us a slapping rain; and, should the white
bull or the brown heifer die, look out for hail, or thunderstorm,
at least, as a forerunner of the event. Nothing less can possibly
console or satisfy us for such a most unaccountable, not to
say unnatural and unwarrantable, a dispensation.
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