This I undertook with the greatest pleasure, and asked him to come to my cottage for the purpose, where we could procure a light. And I was pleased that he did not in any way attempt to “talk goody,” as our people call it, nor even refer to my lonely condition; though I knew by the softness of his manner that it was present to his mind. The reverend gentleman had collected his booty in too Catholic a spirit, mingling with the true Agaric some very fine “horse-mushrooms,” and even one or two poisonous toadstools. Having packed all the good ones in a tidy punnet, which looked more enticing than his handkerchief, I carried them for him to his own door, and obtained leave to call on the morrow, and ask whether the young lady had been tempted. My Uncle Corny was one of that vast majority of good Britons, which can never forbear the most obvious joke, even when it is least attractive. The most fastidious people in the world could scarcely call him “vulgar,”—which used to be a favourite word with them—because he could let them call him what they liked, and be none the worse for it. They might just as well blame a dog for loving liver, or a cat for believing that heaven is milk, as fall foul of my Uncle Corny, because he ate the onions of very common jokes. He liked to make a laugh; and when he failed, he perceived that the fault was upon the other side. “I thought of a capital thing,” he told me, “when I was half awake last night, for I never sleep now as I used to do. If you go on like this, you’ll have to answer to the parish for it. What right have you to change our parson’s name?” I saw by the wag of his nose that he was inditing of some cumbrous joke; and I let him take his time about it. “How slow you are! Can’t you see, Kit, his proper name is Golightly; and you are making him go heavily. Well, never mind. I can’t expect you to see anything just now. I suppose you never mean to laugh again.” “Certainly not at such stuff as that. What am I doing to disturb him?” “Why, you are getting into talks together, and heavy proceedings about probations, and trials, and furnaces of affliction, and all that sort of stuff, as I call it; instead of coming to have your pipe with me.”