"No blunder," said Mr. Wheaton, "I left it out on purpose. I thought may be we could get him for less than fifteen hundred dollars. What do you think? Wouldn't he come on twelve hundred, and the parsonage?" And Mr. Wheaton smiled on me with an air of self-satisfaction which seemed to say, 'Jim Wheaton is the man to manage church business.' I confess I was indignant at the idea of driving a sharp bargain with a minister, but I rather suspect Jim Wheaton never makes any other than a sharp bargain. "Not with my advice," said I. "I told him the church ought to pay fifteen hundred a year and a parsonage, and I presumed it would. But I recommend him not to come till he knows." We were in the Post Office, waiting for the distribution of the evening mail. Mr. Hardcap was one of our group. So was Deacon Goodsole. It was indeed a sort of extemporized and unintentional meeting of our supply committee, only Mr. Gear being absent. "The church won't give mor'n 1,200 with my advice," said Mr. Hardcap decidedly. "And that's mor'n I make. I would just like to contract my time for the year at four dollars a day. And I have to get up at six and work till sunset, ten hours, hard work. I don't see why the parson should have half as much again for five or six hours' work. I have heard our old pastor say myself that he never allowed himself to study mor'n six hours a day." "But the pastoral work, Mr. Hardcap?" said I. "You make no account of that." "The calls, do you mean?" said he. "Well, I should like to be paid four dollars a day for just dressin' up in my best and visitin', that's all." "Not only the calls," said I, "though you would find calling anything but recreation, if it was your business. But there are the prayer-meetings, and the Sabbath-school, and the whole management and direction of the church." "Prayer-meetin' and Sabbath-school!" replied Mr. Hardcap; "don't we all work in them? And we don't ask any salary for it. I guess it ain't no harder for the parson to go to prayer-meetin' than for me." I shrugged my shoulders. The deacon interposed. "I agree with you, Mr. Laicus," said he. "We have got to pay a good salary. I wish we could make it two thousand a year instead of fifteen hundred." Mr. Hardcap opened his eyes and pursed his mouth firmly together, as though he would say 'Do my ears deceive me?' "But," continued the deacon, "there is something in what Mr. Hardcap says. There are half-a-dozen farmers in our Wheathedge congregation who don't handle fifteen hundred dollars in money from one year's end to the other. Mr. Hardcap isn't the only man to whom it seems a big sum to pay. Mr. Lapstone the shoemaker, Mrs. Croily the seamstress, Joe Hodgkins the blacksmith, and half-a-dozen others I could name, have to live on less. And you must remember their incomes, Mr. Laicus, as well as yours, and mine, and Mr. Wheaton's here."