The clerk at Stratfieldsaye, who was a character, once astonished a strange clergyman who was taking the duty. The choir sat in the gallery, and the numbers were few on that Sunday. "Mon I 'elp them chaps? they be terrible few," said the clerk. The clergyman quite agreed that he should render them his valuable assistance, and sit in the gallery. Presently a man came in late, and was kneeling down to say his private prayer, when the clergyman was horrified to see the clerk deliberately rise in the gallery and throw a book at the man's head. When remonstrated with after service the clerk replied carelessly, "Oh, it were only my way o' telling him to sing up, as we were terrible short this marning." CHAPTER XXI CURIOUS STORIES The old clerk of Clapham, Bedford, Mr. Thomas Maddams, always used to read his own version of Psalm xxxix. 12: "Like as it were a moth fretting in a garment." Apparently his idea was of a moth annoyed at being in a garment from which it could not escape. A parish clerk (who prided himself upon being well read) occupied his seat below the old "three-decker" pulpit, and whenever a quotation or an extract from the classics was introduced into the sermon he, in an undertone, muttered its source, much to the annoyance of the preacher and amusement of the congregation. Despite all protests in private, the thing continued, until one day, the vicar's patience being exhausted, he leant over the pulpit side and immediately exclaimed, "Drat you; shut up!" Immediately, in the clerk's usual sententious tone, came the reply, "His own." (William Haggard, _Liverpool Daily Post_.) * * * * * N.B. I have heard this story before, and in a different key: The preacher was a young, bumptious fellow, fond of quoting the classics, etc. One day a learned classic scholar attended his service, and was heard to say, after each quotation, "That's Horace," "That's Plato," and such-like, until the preacher was at his "wits' ends" how to quiet the man. At last, leaning over the pulpit, he looked the man in the face, and is reported to have said, "Who the devil are you?" "That's his own!" was the prompt response. * * * * * In one of the village churches near Honiton, in 1864, the usual duet between the parson and clerk had been the custom, when the vicar appealed to the congregation to take their part. In a little while they took courage, and did so. This annoyed the clerk, and he could not make the responses, and made so many mistakes that the vicar drew his attention to the matter. He replied, with much irritation, "How can _I_ do the service with a lot of men and women a-buzzing and a-fizzing about me?" * * * * * A somewhat similar story is told of another church: