Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

his Grace to accord him the favour of an inter- view. His Grace thought the occasion insuffi- cient ; he suggested that a note in the Society col- umn would meet all demands. The reporter reminded him of the system of payment by the line. “ I am myself paid so much a lie ! ” retorted the cleric, witty even after such a night as he had spent. “ But I see your point ! ” di- recting a sly glance at the newsman’s disordered toi- let. “ May I order you a closed fly ? ” he added with a twinkle. But the reporter was hard at work scribbling down these scintillations in short hand. “ One must live,” said the Daily M . . . er, look- ing up. “ I do not see the necessity ” retorted the other, straining after originality. “ But ” — a pleasanter glance overspread his face, and lit his kindly grey eyes, for his own wit kept him in almost perpetual good humour — “ let us say nothing of all this but what gentlemen should say. I might find it hard to explain the lady’s respi- ratory apparatus, but she could hardly account for the condition of her gigg and gut-end.” “ A jammy proposition ! ” acquiesced the venal newsman. “ A pretty spunky, turdy, mess ! ” “ De mortuis nil nisi bonum ! ” insinuated the tempter. The reporter hesitated. “ Tuam nasam in meum anum immite ! ” laughed the Archbishop, and the pressman, like Messrs. Pond and Morrell in Gilbert’s ballad, was con- vinced. “ I will make it worth your while,” added the wily ecclesiastic. “ You shall take down in that clever shorthand of yours the true story of my life. Mr N.ch.ls will buy the book and cheat you out of the money ; so there’s fame and fortune at a stroke. Put away John Thomas now ; permit me, pray ! — Yes, a fine long battering-piece, with a nice hard [19]