"For giving me self-command enough not to knock you down, sir." With that the rector came so nigh him, that brother Perkins withdrew in haste; for the parson had done that sort of thing to people who ill-used him; and the sense of the parish was always with him. Hence the management of the church-clock passed entirely into my hands, and I kept it almost always going, at less than half Hezekiah's price; and this reunited me to the Church (from which my poor wife perhaps had led me astray some little), by a monthly arrangement which reflected equal credit on either party. And even this was not the whole of the blessings that now rolled down upon me, for the sake, no doubt, of little Bardie, as with the ark in the Bible. For this fine Felix Farley was the only great author of news at that time prevalent among us. It is true that there was another journal nearer to us, at Hereford, and a highly good one, but for a very clear reason it failed to have command of the public-houses. For the customers liked both their pipes and their papers to be of the same origin, and go together kindly. And Hereford sent out no tobacco; while Bristol was more famous for the best Virginian birdseye, than even for rum, or intelligence. Therefore, as everybody gifted with the gift of reading came to the public-houses gradually, and to compare interpretation over those two narratives, both of which stirred our county up, my humble name was in their mouths as freely and approvingly as the sealing-wax end of their pipe stems. Unanimous consent accrued (when all had said the same thing over, fifty times in different manners, and with fine-drawn argument) that after all, and upon the whole, David Llewellyn was an honour to county and to country.