am somewhat slender of form, though not too slender, I
take it, for my height, standing, as I do, five feet six inches in my
half hose, and I trust I am free from the sin of personal vanity; but I
confess that at the moment, contemplating my likeness in the mirror, I
could have wished my knees had not been quite so prominently
conspicuous, and that the projection of the thyroid cartilage of the
larynx, called vulgarly Adam's apple, had been perhaps a trifle less
obtrusive.

To my slenderness I also attribute a feeling as though all was not well
in the vicinity of the waistline, even though I tightened and
retightened my belt so snugly as to cause some difficulty in respiring
properly. From the time when I ceased to wear short trousers, which
buttoned on, I have ever had recourse to braces or suspenders; and the
lack of these useful but perhaps not beautiful adjuncts to a wardrobe
gave a sensation of insecurity which, for the nonce, proved
disconcerting in the extreme.

Emotions that at this moment I find it hard to interpret in words
actuated me to leave the house in a quiet and unostentatious fashion--by
the back door, in fact--and to proceed on my way to the parish house,
two blocks distant, along a rather obscure side street. I was perhaps
halfway there when through the falling dusk I discerned, approaching
from the opposite direction, three of my parishioners--a Mr. G. W.
Pottinger, whom from our first acquaintance I suspected of possessing an
undue sense of humour, and his daughters, the Misses Mildred and Mabel
Pottinger.

For the moment I was possessed by a mental condition I may define as
being akin to embarrassment. Involuntarily I turned into the nearest
doorway. My object was to avoid a meeting; I tell you this frankly.
Immediately, however, I noted that the door I was about to enter was
the door of a tobacco dealer's shop. As though frozen into marble, I
halted with my hand on the latch. I have never had recourse to that
noxious weed, tobacco, in any form whatsoever, except on one occasion
when, in the absence of camphor, I employed it in a crumbled state for
the purpose of protecting certain woolen undergarments from the ravages
of the common moth.

[Illustration: MAY I ASK WHETHER YOU ARE GOING TO A FANCY DRESS PARTY
SOMEWHERE?]

Indeed, my attitude in regard to tobacco is as firm as that of the
youth, Robert Reed, whose noble and inspiring words on this subject,
embodied in verse form, I have frequ