"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."