/ Preach to the Parson. 157 



*' So_, parson, do loosen the strings a little ; don't pass your 

 little edicts against the gallery for joining in a chorus, if I 

 sing a homely song with a tally-ho refrain at a penny 

 reading. Don't get up and say, ' Silence, if you please.' 

 Let them sing it if they like. The chorus may be 

 noisy, but there is nothing immoral in a good ' coal- 

 box.' Don't be hard on the club at the Green Lion, 

 and don't invite the police to interfere. The landlord of 

 the Green Lion never had a word against his house, as you 

 know ; and if the cribbage is beyond the law, take my word 

 for it there is no perdition in ' one for his nob or two for 

 his heels ' (' eels,' as Mr. Bumble, the beadle, calls it) ; and 

 if you saw Mr. Bumble at the critical points of ' Hole and 

 Hole,' at the bottom of the second row, which he calls 

 ' level chalks,' putting down his pipe and wiping his face 

 with excitement, why, parson, you would burst out 

 laughing. You don't see it, parson, but I do, when I go in 

 to see them about cricket. The misfortune is that the 

 Green Lion Club cannot do what they would do if they 

 were foreigners. Mind, I am not one of those who go 

 abroad and abuse everything at home. Well, I say if they 

 were foreigners you would see half the club, in the summer, 

 sitting outside on the green playing that game of cribbage 

 boldly in the pubHc gaze, and you would see the \T.llage curey 

 with his umbrella under his arm, looking over Mr. Bumble's 

 cards, as interested as Mr. Bumble at the trjang ordeal of 

 ' level chalks ' and first player. You w^ould see the skittles 

 openly played. What do you get now instead ? The black- 

 guard cocoa-nut men, whose language j)ollutes the air, and 

 whom you ought to put the police upon. I will give you 

 all in that ' Society ' have made cards and billiards and 

 theatres (many of them), as now conducted, quicksands for 

 evil, and that local racing has come to a blackguard jDitch ; 

 but do take it from me that your parishioners who are fond 



