that the eye had so much employment that the ear was neglected and so
missed its opportunities.

Each boy licked his lips vigorously to start with, and then glued his
eyes upon one fixed spot, as if he saw the words in bold type there.
If he did, an invisible compositor had set them up in the west window
for the one lad, and on a corner of the ceiling for the other. The
swiftness with which the words came out reminded me of a brakeless
gramophone running at top speed; and it made the performers gasp for
breath, which they dared hardly stop to renew lest memory should take
wings and fly away. I am sure I was relieved when the final bob to the
congregation was reached and the contortions ended.

The address was tedious, like the prayer, but fortunately it was not
long; then the preacher came in to tea, it being Mother Hubbard's turn
to entertain him.

The chapel people take the preachers according to an arranged plan with
which they are all familiar. My old lady regards the privilege as in
the nature of a heavenly endowment, and she has more than once reminded
me that those who show hospitality to God's ministers sometimes
entertain angels unawares. No doubt that is so, but the wings were
very, very inconspicuous in the one who ate our buttered toast that
Sunday.

All the same he is, I am sure, a very good man, and a man of large and
cheerful self-sacrifice which calls for admiration and respect, and I
do sincerely honour him; and it is no fault of his that his great big
hands are deeply seamed over their entire surface, and that the
crevices are filled with black. He works, I discovered, at an
iron-foundry, and I believe his hands were really as clean as soap and
water could make them. But when all has been said, he need not have
spread them over all the plate whenever he helped himself to another
slice of bread, and he might just as well have taken the first piece he
touched. I suppose I am squeamish, but I cannot help it. I found some
amusement in pressing him to eat all he had touched, however, and
seeing that he did it.

His conversation was chiefly remarkable for the use he made of the
phrase "as it were." Mother Hubbard regards him as a genius, but I
doubt if he is anything more than an intelligent eccentric. It must
have been his flow of language which got him "on the plan" that is to
say, into the ranks of the local preachers of the Wesleyan Church--for,
like the brook, he could "go on for ever."