'A' is
one, and can only be applied to one thing. You cannot say a cats or a
dogs; but only a cat, a dog." The clerk at once reported the matter to
his rector. "Here's a pretty fellow you've got to keep school! He says
that you can only apply the article 'a' to nouns of the singular number;
and here have I been singing 'A--men' all my life, and your reverence
has never once corrected me."
* * * * *
Communicated by Mrs. Williamson, Lydgate Vicarage:
The old parish clerk of Radcliffe was secretary of the races committee,
and would hurry out of church to attend these meetings. Mr. Foxley, the
rector, was told of this weakness of his clerk, so one Wednesday
evening, when the rector knew there was a meeting, he got into the
pulpit (a three-decker was then in the church), and began his sermon.
Half an hour went by, then the clerk began to be restless. Another
half-hour passed; the clerk looked up from his seat under the pulpit,
but still the rector went on preaching. It was too late then for the
race-course meeting. So when the sermon was at length finished, the
clerk got up and gave out "the 'undred and nineteenth Psalm from yend
to yend. He's preached all day, and we'll sing all neet" (night).
* * * * *
At Westhoughton Church, Lancashire, there was a clerk of the old school,
one Platt, who just before the sermon would stretch his long arm and
offer his snuff-box to his old friend Betty, and to other cronies who
happened to be in his immediate neighbourhood.
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