This extraordinary train was allowed to sweep the floor; the only sign of humility, according to my uninstructed faculties, I could discern about the person and appearance of this illustrious model of clerical self-mortification and humility.
The brigadier, however, was not tardy in setting me right.

In the first place, he gave me to understand that the hierarchy of Leaphigh was illustrated by the order of their tails.

Thus, a deacon wore one and a half; a curate, if a minister, one and three-quarters, and a rector two; a dean, two and a half, an archdeacon, three; a bishop, four; the Primate of Leaphigh, five, and the Primate of ALL Leaphigh, six.

The origin of the custom, which was very ancient, and of course very much respected, was imputed to the doctrine of a saint of great celebrity, who had satisfactorily proved that as the tail was the intellectual or the spiritual part of a monikin, the farther it was removed from the mass of matter, or the body, the more likely it was to be independent, consecutive, logical, and spiritualized.

The idea had succeeded astonishingly at first; but time, which will wear out even a cauda, had given birth to schisms in the church on this interesting subject; one party contending that two more joints ought to be added to the archbishop's embellishment, by way of sustaining the church, and the other that two joints ought to be incontinently abstracted, in the way of reform.
These explanations were interrupted by the appearance of the bride and bridegroom, at different doors.