He told them in order, and I, the chronicler, put them in parallel columns:

The Bishop. The Premier.
He went to a provincial town for some function: the clergy and others met in the Assembly room of the chief hotel; and there was to be a procession through the streets. While they were robing, an elderly farmer came hurriedly into the room, made straight for the Bishop, and greeted him heartily. “How do you do-o?” said the Bishop: “so glad to see you: how is the old grey?”
“Very hearty, thank ye, my Lord, and the grey mare too: very good of your lordship to remember the old lass.”
“So-o glad,” purred the Bishop: “so good of you to come: good bye.”
“Who’s your friend?” said one, when the door was shut.
“Really, I have no idea.”
“Why, you asked him after his old grey.”
“Yes,” replied the Bishop reproachfully; “but when you see a man with a great coat covered with grey hairs, you may assume that he has been driving a grey horse.”		 Lord Palmerston and Sir J. Paget (who told the story) were walking down Bond Street. A man came up and saluted the statesman.
“How do you do, Lord Palmerston?”
“Ah, how do? glad to see you: how’s the old complaint?”
The stranger’s face clouded over, and he shook his head: “No better.”
“Dear me: so sorry: glad to have met you: good bye.”
“Who’s your friend?” said Sir James when the stranger was gone.
“No idea.”
“Why, you asked about his old complaint!”
“Pooh, pooh,” replied the other, unconcernedly: “the old fellow’s well over 60; bound to have something the matter with him.”

“Now when you hear one story, you say, ‘Good old Pam’ and admire his worldly wisdom: when you hear the other, you say ‘How like Sam’ and deplore his crafty cunning.”

We looked at one another, and shame covered our faces. “Agreed,” said Johnson: “S. Oxon was great; he was genial, and he was witty. What was his best saying? I am inclined to give the first prize to his comment on Bishop X’s marriage. Let me recite it. The Bishop, you remember, married some one of humble station, and that so quietly that no one knew of it for some time. Then there was an outcry, and the Bishop resigned the see. This was reported to Wilberforce, who remarked that his right-reverend brother might fitly be appointed to the See of Ossory and Ferns, then vacant, for he believed ferns were cryptogamous.”

The laughter was partial, for certainly Goodfellow, and possibly another, besides Mrs. Miller, failed to catch the point, and the Archdeacon seemed in doubt whether the story were quite proper: but Mrs. Miller turned calmly to me, and begged that I would perform the necessary surgical operation, if I was quite sure——eh?

“Quite safe,” I assured her: “I examine in Botany: plants which have visible flowers and so on are phanerogams: the others, which marry in secret, are cryptogamous: ferns are cryptogams.”

“No joke can survive a post mortem”: Mrs. Miller smiled sadly and left us.

“Have a cigar before you go?” said our host, and we made for the study.

CHAPTER XII
MILLER’S STUDY

“Pereant qui ante nos nostra narraverint.”