was scenting the room, and was adorned with
griffins on a great armorial seal. He broke the
seal, regardless of the griffins' necks, and read:

''Lady Skedaddle ventures to recommend to
the Vicar of Grumbleton, Arabella Porkins. She
has taught her infant school four months in the
absence of the regular mistress. Arabella
Porkins can keep the attention of the infants
alive in the most wonderful manner, by telling
them most interesting tales, wholly imaginary,
and then she sings beautifully."

My friend laid down the letter in despair, and
would not open any more. The spectacle of his
bewilderment moved me to the suggestion that
he should shake all the letters well together,
pick out five at random, and then use his
discretion in accepting one out of the five
applications. It was a happy inspiration.

"Do you know," said Drowse, "that's worth
consideration! I'll sleep on that idea of yours."

There are, so Drowse says, only a few
instruments of torture now permitted by the law; but
the Committee of the Privy Council is one of
them. It consists, according to Drowse—and he
went one day to see for himself—of a hostile
body of officials, whose business it is to pick holes
in the skins of the clergy, and then rub the sores.
Still he admits that it is not a joking matter
when he has the committee's eye, in the shape
of Mr. Inspector, down on him. "You must
give him a dinner, and be civil," says Drowse.
"Only let him go into the school famished, and
the first thing he does, is, to lose his temper,
then he turns all their wits out of the children's
heads, and in ten minutes he's brimful of such
a report, as makes my skin creep."

Such is the present trouble of our worthy and
respected vicar. A good, kind-hearted old man
he undoubtedly is, and slowly luminous. When
one of his parishioners, irate in vestry, exclaimed
that a Grumbleton parson would never set the
Thames on fire, he quietly asked, "Who wants
to set it on fire?" This gave him a day's credit
as a wit in Grumbleton, and considering that it
was said in vestry, it deserves remark. But we
Grumbleton folks do not like to see our good
old friend in trouble, and we rally round him as
he quakes before this down-rush of damsels who
have set their hearts upon him and his school.

A few days elapse, and, by the help of some
friends, Drowse is made ready to face a Meeting
of the Committee of the School. "School
committees," says Drowse, "are not always so
orderly as the children;" but then, he adds, " the
more there are of you, the more stupid you are
sure to be." His discourse on this subject is
edifying. "Now," he says, "my committee is
an instance. You will find in it clever men
enough, taken singly, but, bless your soul, the
average of intellect is a very low one in an
assembly where clever and stupid men are mixed
together. The stupid men drag down the clever
men, and you would be surprised to see how
timid and wavering many of the better class of
minds become. They lose self-reliance when they
work with a bold positive booby, have no fixed
rallying-point, and have no champion to do the
thinking for them. A stupid man who understands
committee-work will wind all the fine
thinkers up, spin them to sleep, and take them
up in his spoon. It's as easy as peg-top."

This is, perhaps, the reason why our vicar
gets on so well with his committees, as he
certainly does contrive, in the long run, to have it
all his own way, and either tires them out, or
sends them to sleep.

Here we are, then, in vestry assembled;
eighteen guinea patrons, who can send their
children at half-price; three guinea and two
guinea patrons; also the president, Mr. Drowse,
who subscribes five guineas annually to the
school. Drowse briefly opens the proceedings.
He informs the committee what all, in our
respective personal capacities, knew before,
that Miss Sniggles had given warning to leave.
He says this as if he were the most injured
man in the world, in consequence.

A pile of letters six inches high lies on his
right hand, and another pile half as thick again
lies on his left.

"I may say, gentlemen," continues Mr.
Drowse, "that all these applications have been
carefully perused, and thought unsuitable. Any
gentleman can look through them and satisfy
himself of their value."

Up jumps a two guinea patron, a radical and
a dissenter, as Drowse calls him: "We ought
to have them all read, so as to form our own
unbiased judgment, gentlemen, and not permit
the rector to rough-ride the parish in this
manner. I'm a two guinea patron though not
a churchman, and I, for my part, haven't seen
one of them; have you, Admiral Groggen?"

"Hasn't he," said Admiral Groggen, who just
caught one word of the last speaker's address
through his ear-trumpet. "He has seen half a
dozen of them, I know. Enterprising girls.
Come a long way on purpose."

Drowse, however, to save time, hands the
packet of rejected addresses to our friend
Groggen, with the request that he will read aloud
from them, to satisfy himself and the committee
generally.

"Here is one," says the admiral, "to begin
with:

"'Reverend and BARBEROUS Sir,—On the
25th ultimo sent you application for school, with
particulars that I was an unprotected female, who
could play the barrel-organ, and asked whether
you found fuel, whether the house was lonely,
or near the churchyard. Surely a man—much
more a gentleman and a clergyman—would never
have suffered a day to pass—to say nothing of
more than three weeks—without one line to
satisfy a nateral and proper curiosity.
"' Yours, &c.,

"' MARTHA DUNK.'"

Roars of laughter from the committee, which
lasted a considerable time, and left everybody in
such a good humour, that it was determined to
go through the rest of the file as an amusement.
"These ladies marry fast," remarked the