“That is the wise way to look at it, you may depend!”
“We shall see which was in the right. I have discharged my conscience. But, Mr. Hawes, I am hurt you should say I preached a sermon against you.”
“I dare say you are, sir, but who began it; if you had not talked of complaining to the justices of me, I should never have said a word against you.”
“That is all settled; but it is due to my character to show you that I had no intention of pointing at you or any living creature from the pulpit.”
“Well, make me believe that.”
“If you will do me the favor to come to my room I can prove it to you.”
The chaplain took the governor to his room and opened two drawers in a massive table.
“Mr. Hawes,” said he, “do you see this pile of sermons in this right-hand drawer?”
“I see them,” said Hawes, with a doleful air, “and I suppose I shall hear some of them before long.”
“These,” said Mr. Jones, smiling with perfect good-humor at the innocuous sneer, “are sermons I composed when I was curate of Little-Stoke. Of late I have been going regularly through my Little-Stoke discourses, as you may see. I take one from the pile in this drawer, and after first preaching it in the jail I place it in the left drawer on that smaller pile.”