--The Reverend Alonzo Fizzle had preached his
farewell-sermon to his disconsolate people in Drowsytown. The next
morning, Monday, he was strolling musingly along a silent road among the
melancholy woods. The pastor of a neighboring flock, the Reverend Darius
Dizzle, was driving by in his modest one-horse chaise.
"Take a seat, Fizzle?" said he. "Don't care if I do," said Fizzle,--and
took it.
"Why, the mischief, Fizzle," said Dizzle, "did you say in your
farewell-sermon, that it was just as well to preach to the dead buried
six feet under the earth as to the people of Drowsytown?"
_"I?--I?--I?"_ gasped the astonished Fizzle. "A more alive and wakeful
people are not upon the earth than the citizens of Drowsytown. What
calumniator has thus outraged them and _me_? Who told you this? _Who_
dared to say it?"
"Brother Ichabod Muzzle," calmly answered Dizzle.
Fizzle leaped out, hurried to his home, and was soon seen whipping his
unfortunate horse in a certain direction. He was on his way to the
residence of the Reverend Ichabod Muzzle, who lived five or six miles
off. He reached the home of the Reverend Ichabod. The friends greeted
each other. Fizzle, though pregnant with indignation, assumed the
benignant air of the Beloved Disciple. Muzzle looked Platonically the
incarnate idea of the Christian Parson.
"Fine day," said Fizzle.
"Lovely," said Muzzle.
"Glorious view from this window," observed Fizzle.
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