Page:Literary Lapses - Leacock - 1919.djvu/174

  To pay for the magic lantern, the curate and the ladies of the church got up some amateur theatricals.

Finally, to pay for the costumes for the theatricals, the rector felt it his duty to dispense with the curate.

So that is where the church stands just at present. What they chiefly want to do, is to raise enough money to buy a suitable gold watch as a testimonial to the curate. After that they hope to be able to do something for the Armenians. Meantime, of course, the Armenians, the ones right there in the town, are getting very troublesome. To begin with, there is the Armenian who rented the costumes for the theatricals: he has to be squared. Then there is the Armenian organ dealer, and the Armenian who owned the magic lantern. They want relief badly.

The most urgent case is that of the Armenian who holds the mortgage on the parsonage; indeed it is generally felt in the congregation, when the rector makes his impassioned appeals at the special services on behalf of the suffering cause, that it is to this man that he has special reference.

In the meanwhile the general public sub-