Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit
favor of a few moments conversation on a most urgent matter."
I had already subdued the stud, thereby proclaiming that the image of God has supremacy over all matters (a valuable truth), and, throwing on my dress-coat and waist coat, hurried into the drawing-room. He rose at my entrance, flapping like a seal; I can use no other description. He flapped a plaid shawl over his right arm; he flapped a pair of pathetic black gloves; he flapped his clothes; I may say, without exaggeration, that he flapped his eyelids, as he rose. He was a bald-browed, white-haired, white-whiskered old clergyman of a flappy and floppy type. He said:
"I am so sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so extremely sorry. I come—I can only say—I can only say in my defence, that I come—upon an important matter. Pray forgive me."
I told him I forgave perfectly and waited.
"What I have to say," he said, brokenly, "is so dreadful—it is so dreadful—I have lived a quiet life."
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