158 I Preach to the Parson. 



of sport and music and manly recreations want encouraging 

 by you, and if you would get a thorough gentlemen for 

 curate, who is a man of earnest purpose and a muscular 

 Christian, he would turn half the roughs in the place lound 

 his finger, and your church would not half hold the people. 

 Your feelings prejudice you. You are not friendly to old 

 Father Peter, the Roman Catholic priest ; he is an intimate 

 friend of mine, a dear old man, a rare scholar, a good 

 musician and florist. He has tried hard to convert me, and 

 only the other night I told him if there had been another 

 squeeze of potteen in the bottle, or a drop more hot water, 

 he could have done it. He offered to put the kettle on 

 again, but 1 preferred a return match and to begin de novo. 

 So I was within a glass of punch of being a Roman Catholic, 

 and of training an eleven of priests, as most certainly I 

 should have done. Ah ! yon say that you will give me as 

 ^ood a glass of mountain-dew as Father Peter, and I may 

 have a pipe ; done along of you, parson, and — no, Mrs. 

 Parson, I won't keep him up late, and we will keep good 

 hours, as my friends at the Green Lion doP 



