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“My authority is Mr. Burton, who was present.”

“Did he tell you that Mr. Manlius was intoxicated?”

“He said there was a drunken minister there, and Mr. Manlius, I have ascertained, was the only clergyman present.”

“Was that so?” asked the deacon of an individual who was at Mr. Reeside’s.

“Mr. Manlius was the only clergyman there,” was replied.

“Then,” said Perkins, “if there was a drunken minister there, it must have been Mr. Manlius. I can draw no other inference.”

“Can Mr. Burton be found?” was now asked.

An individual immediately volunteered to go in search of him. In half an hour he was produced. As he entered the grave assembly, he looked around with great composure upon the array of solemn faces and eyes intently fixed upon him. He did not appear in the least abashed.

“You were at Mr. Reeside’s last week, at a dinner-party, I believe?” said the presiding deacon.

“I was.”

“Did you see Mr. Manlius intoxicated on that occasion?”

“Mr. Manlius! Good heavens! no! I can testify, upon oath, that he was as solemn as a judge. Who says that I made so scandalous an allegation?”

Burton appeared to grow strongly excited.

“I say so,” cried Perkins in a loud voice.

“You say so? And, pray, upon what authority?”

“Upon the authority of your own words.”

“Never!”

“But you did tell me so.”

Perkins was much excited.

“When?”

“On the day after the dinner-party. Don’t you remember what you said to me?”

“Oh, yes–perfectly.”

“That you had a drunken minister at dinner?”

“No, I never said that.”

“But you did, I can be qualified to it.”

“I said we had a ‘tipsy parson.'”

“And, pray, what is the difference?”

At the words “tipsy parson,” the minister burst into a loud laugh, and so did two or three others who had been at Mr. Reeside’s. The grave deacon in the chair looked around with frowning wonder at such indecorum, and felt that especially ill-timed was the levity of the minister.

“I do not understand this,” he said, with great gravity.

“I can explain it,” remarked an individual, rising, “as I happened to be at Mr. Reeside’s, and know all about the ‘tipsy parson.’ The cook of our kind hostess, in her culinary ingenuity, furnished a dessert, which she called ‘tipsy parson,’–made, I believe, by soaking sponge-cake in brandy and pouring a custard over it. It is therefore true, as our friend Burton has said, that there was a ‘tipsy parson’ at the table; but as to the drunken minister of Mr. Perkins, I know nothing.”

Never before, in a grave and solemn assembly of deacons, was there such a sudden and universal burst of laughter, such a holding of sides and vibration of bodies, as followed this unexpected speech. In the midst of the confusion and noise, Perkins quietly retired. He has been known, ever since, in the village, much to his chagrin and scandalization, he being still a warm temperance man, as the “tipsy parson.”

“There goes the ‘tipsy parson'” he hears said, as he passes along the street, a dozen times in a week, and he is now seriously inclined to leave the village, in order to escape the ridicule his over-zealous effort to blast the minister’s reputation has called into existence. As for the Rev. Mr. Manlius, he often tells the story, and laughs over it as heartily as any one.