A year or two ago my friend X. was dining in a London mansion. “Who’s that?” said a lady opposite, as she ducked her head in his direction and looked at her partner. X. turned to speak to _his_ partner, but could not help hearing the scarcely whispered dialogue: “A country parson, did you say? Why, he’s tall!” And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted All the air about the windows with elastic laughter sweet. It was quite a surprise to that lady novelist that a country parson could be tall! Many men are tall--policemen, for instance. But only short men ought to be country parsons. Why! we shall hear of one of them being good-looking next! When any class of men feel themselves to be the butt of others, they are apt to be a little cowed. They hold their peace and fret, and if they resent their hard treatment and speak out, they rarely do themselves justice. Very few men can come well out of a _snub_, and the countryman who is not used to it never knows what to reply to offensive language. Yet worms have been known to turn, not that I ever heard they got any good by it; they can’t bite, and they can’t sting, but I suppose it comforts them to deliver their own souls. Poor worms! Yes! you may pity them. * * * * * But if the country parson has his trials, how may he hope to be listened to when he desires to make it clear what they are? Where shall he begin? Where shall he begin if not by pointing to that delicate nerve-centre of draped humanity, exquisite in its sensitiveness, knowing no rest in its perpetual giving out of force, for ever hungering for renewal of its exhausted resources, feeling no pain in its plethora and dreading no death save from inanition--to wit, the Pocket? Touch a man’s pocket, and a shudder thrills through every fibre. The country parson has a great deal to complain of at the hands of those who will persist in talking of him as an exceptionally thriving stipendiary. It is one thing to say that in all cases he gets more than he deserves; it is quite another to put forth unblushingly that his income is half as much again as in fact it is, and his outgoings only what the outgoings of other men are. Logicians class the _suppressio veri_ among sophisms; but would it not be better to call that artful proceeding a fraud? “Drink fair, Betsy, whatever you do!” said Mrs. Gamp on a memorable occasion. Yes, if it is only out of the teapot.