154 I Preach to the Parson. 



King of Second Masters, whose windows opened on to 

 ' Chamber Court/ sometimes heard ' tall talk/ which was 

 not intended for his ear, uttered in anger. How well I 

 pemember, days afterwards, in speaking on some school 

 matters, he would in the kindest way remind the offender 

 of what he had heard, and, prefacing his remarks with 

 * Mind, I am speaking to you as your friend and not as 

 your master,' he would say a few touching words to him 

 with his hand on the boy's shoulder. And, Yicar, I 

 often feel that hand on my shoulder,' as if he was with 

 me now sometimes. You must remember w^hen it was a 

 tight-fit Avith you, about three or four parish matters, when 

 those like yourself, who w^ere interested in cricket, got all 

 the cricketers' families, and all the people whom they could 

 influence, to back 3^ou ; and how the vestry had to be ad- 

 journed to the school-room, and all the ratepayers who, 

 to adopt the low expression, * used ' the parlour of the 

 Green Lion, and their friends, came and swamped your 

 foes. Let me talk to you like a man and a brother. They 

 did that because you subscribed a guinea to the cricket. 

 They all lament your apathy ; but the guinea was a living 

 proof. And see how injudicious some of you are, 'ram- 

 paging " about the iniquity of races, just in the race time? 

 when most of the congregation are going to them, or going 

 to have parties to see the people return, and every soul 

 in the parish hopes to turn a penny somehow or another. 

 Why, the dissenting linen-draper's shop is a blaze of green 

 and blue veils. I agree w4th you entirely, that it would 

 be no great loss to the parish if the Derby was abolished ^ 

 as the crowd has now become very rough and disorderly, 

 and a lot of our fellows get drunk and keep drunk— not 

 our cricketers, mind you — but so they would if w^e had a 

 Royal procession through the parish or any other public 

 show or holiday. Nine-tenths of your audience who go. 



