"Thirty! thirty! that's all you are, parson, or all you ought to be,"
cried the deacon. "Thirty, twenty, sixteen. Let the figures slide down
and up, according to circumstances, but never let them go higher than
thirty, when you are dealing with young folks. I'm sixty myself,
counting years, but I'm only sixteen; sixteen this morning, that's all,
parson," and he rubbed his little, round, plump hands together, looked
at the parson and winked.

"Bless my soul, Deacon Tubman, I don't know but that you are right!"
answered the parson. "Sixty? I don't know as I am sixty." And he began
to rub his own hands, and came within an ace of executing a wink at the
deacon himself.

"Not a day over twenty, if I am any judge of age," responded the deacon,
deliberately, as he looked the white-headed old minister over with a
most comic imitation of seriousness. "Not a day over twenty, on my
honor," and the deacon leaned forward toward the parson and gave him a
punch with his thumb, as one boy might deliver a punch at another, and
then he lay back in his chair and laughed so heartily that the parson
caught the infectious mirth and roared away as heartily as the deacon.

Yes, it was impossible to sit hobnobbing with the jolly little deacon on
that bright New Year's morning and not be affected by the happiness of
his mood, for he was actually bubbling over with fun and as full of
frolic as if the finger on the dial had, in truth, gone back forty years
and he was only sixteen. "Only sixteen, parson, on my honor."

"But what can I do," queried the good man, sobering down. "I make my
pastoral visits"--