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Third Par.—Why! it is the rector that I am talking about!

Curate.—Yes, certainly! the rector.

Third Par.—Well! I am very sorry such a thing should have, occurred. At any rate, do you, please, be so kind as to come.

Curate.—Most certainly, I will come.

Third Par.—Now I will be off.

Curate.—Are you going?

Third Par.—Yes. Good-bye!

Curate.—Good-bye! Thanks for your visit.

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Third Par.—Well, I never! He says things that I cannot in the least make out.

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Curate.—This time, at all events, he will be pleased. Pray! are you in?

Rector.—Oh! that is you! Is it on business that you come?

Curate.—Somebody has just been here to ask both Your Reverence and myself to go to him to-morow, when there is a religious anniversary in his family. So I said that 1 would go, but that you would scarcely be able to do so.

Rector.—What a pity! I should have liked to go, as I just happen to be at leisure to-morrow.

Curate.—Oh! but I said what you had instructed me to say.

Rector.—I do not remember. What was it, then, that you answered?

Curate.—I said that we had lately turned you out to grass, and that, becoming frolicsome, you had dislocated your thigh, and were lying down covered with straw in a corner of the stable, so that you would scarcely be able to go

Rector.—You really and truly went and said that?

Curate.—Yes! really and truly.

Rector.—Well, I never! You are an idiot! Speak as I may, over and over again, nothing seems to be able to make you understand. It was if they came to borrow a horse, that I told you to make that answer! The end of all this is, that it will never do for you to become rector. Get along with you!

Curate.—Oh!

Rector.—Won't you get along? Won't you get along? Won't you get along?

Curate.—Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! But, Reverend Sir, for all you are my master, it is an unheard-of shame for you to beat me thus. And for all you are the man you are, you cannot be said to have been without your frolics either,—that you cannot!