"Skittles" CHAPTER I Mr. Plumber was a passable preacher. Not an orator, perhaps--though it is certain that they had had less oratorical curates at Exdale. His delivery was not exactly good. But then the matter was fair, at times. Though Mr. Ingledew did say that Mr. Plumber's sermons were rather in the nature of reminiscences--tit-bits collated from other divines. According to this authority, listening to Mr. Plumber preaching was a capital exercise for the memory. His pulpit addresses might almost be regarded in the light of a series of examination papers. One might take it for granted that every thought was borrowed from some one, the question--put by the examiner, as it were--being from whom? On the other hand, it must be granted that Mr. Ingledew's character was well understood in Exdale. He was one of those persons who are persuaded that there is no such thing as absolute originality in the present year of grace. From his point of view, all the moderns are thieves. He read a new book, not for the pleasure of reading it, but for the pleasure of finding out, as a sort of anemonic exercise, from whom its various parts had been pilfered. He held that, nowadays, nothing new is being produced, either in prose or verse; and that the only thing which the latter day writer does need, is the capacity to use the scissors and the paste. So it was no new thing for the Exdale congregation to be informed that the sermon which they had listened to had been preached before. Nor, Mrs. Manby declared, in any case, was that the point. She wanted a preacher to do her good. If he could not do her good out of his own mouth, then, by all means, let him do her good out of the mouths of others. All gifts are not given to all men. If a man was conscious of his incapacity in one direction, then she, for one, had no objection to his availing himself, to the best of his ability, of his capacity in another. But--and here Mrs. Manby held up her hands in the manner which is so well known to her friends--when a man told her, from the pulpit, on the Sunday, that life was a solemn and a serious thing, and then on the Monday wrote for a comic paper--and such a comic paper!--that was the point, and quite another matter entirely. How the story first was told has not been clearly ascertained. The presumption is, that a proof was sent to Mr. Plumber in one of those wrappers which are open at both ends in which proofs sometimes are sent; and that on the front of this wrapper was imprinted, by way of advertisement, the source of its origin: "_Skittles: Not to mention the Beer. A Comic Croaker for the Cultured Classes_."