"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that
change which came from time to time in his eyes as if the
flame behind the screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree
with every word you say; the meanest church in the land should
be cherished as long as it will hold together. But
unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very old and
decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level
of the surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been
examined over and over again by experts during the past forty
or fifty years, and from the first they pronounced it a
hopeless case, so that it was never restored. The interior,
right down to the time of demolition, was like that of most
country churches of a century ago, with the old black worm-
eaten pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if
in their own houses or castles. On account of the damp we
were haunted by toads. You smile, sir, but it was no smiling
matter for me during my first year as vicar, when I discovered
that it was the custom here to keep pet toads in the church.
It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but it is a fact that
all the best people in the parish had one of these creatures,
and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly
supply of provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped
up, and earth-worms, and whatever else they fancied it would
like--in their reticules. The toads, I suppose, knew when it
was Sunday--their feeding day; at all events they would crawl
out of their holes in the floor under the pews to receive
their rations--and caresses. The toads got on my nerves with
rather unpleasant consequences. I preached in a way which my
listeners did not appreciate or properly understand,
particularly when I took for my subject our duty towards the