Sayeth vicar Gore, "Let;s dicker."

The Two Randy Vicars Iowas Hawk=Genius

“  happened that in Washingtown-on-Beltway there once ministered to the shire folk two vicars of remarkable and resolute piety. Polite history shall record their names and peerages as the Reverend John St. Edwards, Lord Plaintiff of Durham, and the Reverend Albert des Gores II, Earl Carbonet of Greenhouse. It shall likewise note well that each man, in his fashion, was a virtuoso upon his respective pulpit. What it shan't record, however, is each man's slavish indenture to the base desires of the flesh. As every schoolboy knows, as well he does his Latin infinitives, few are those men whose breeches are immune to the Devil's disturbances. In the case of our two ill-fortuned subjects, Lucifer himself seemed to take particular delight in presenting ribald temptations and the debasing consequences that follow. Herein lies their tale. Of our first subject, the Vicar John, let us note that he overcame a birth of low station through vigorous enterprise, fine grooming, and a tongue deft in weaving tragic tales of indigence; first as a simple shire barrister and then as an ordained minister at the Abbey of Washingtown. "Brethren, in my travels I have observed that we live in two shires," he was wont to tell his rapt parishioners. "One with which you are familiar; whose roofs are handsomely thatched and in whose plump bellies rest a gluttonous supper of lamb's-pudding. Yet, and alas, there is another shire; one in which dwell the miserable wretches laid low by our sinful and unrepentant avarice. Wretches like this unfortunate filthy lad, who has not a morsel eaten in the last fortnight." Upon which he would dispatch some soiled and peckish urchin into the congregation with the offering-basket, to fetch indulgences from the weeping flock of penitents. These sermons and indulgences proved quite lucrative to Vicar John, and he soon lavished upon himself great indulgences of his own; a baronial rectory in the country-side, satin waistcoats and breeches, silver buckle pumps, the finest Italianate wigs, and a staff of haberdashers and barbers for their tending. From Huffingtown to Pandagon to ... continued ” Marc Miller