"But it is a devil of a thing to have too nice a conscience!" quoth the member of parliament.

"And it is not an angel of a thing to lose one's front teeth!" sighed the fine gentleman.

Therewith my father rose, and putting his hand into his waistcoat, more suo, delivered his famous Sermon Upon The Connection Between Faith And Purpose.

Famous it was in our domestic circle, but as yet it has not gone beyond; and since the reader, I am sure, does not turn to the Caxton Memoirs with the expectation of finding sermons, so to that circle let its fame be circumscribed. All I shall say about it is that it was a very fine sermon, and that it proved indisputably—to me at least—the salubrious effects of a saffron bag applied to the great centre of the nervous system. But the wise Ali saith that "a fool doth not know what maketh him look little, neither will he hearken to him that adviseth him." I cannot assert that my father's friends were fools, but they certainly came under this definition of Folly.