102 PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS.

got fast asleep, when he was standing
up. We always stood up, by the way,
in prayer time. One afternoon, when
the prayer was a little longer than
usual—rather too long, we children
thought—Captain Ball lost his balance,
and over he pitched into the broad aisle.
He came down with a great crash, for he
was a fat, heavy man—lazy folks are apt
to be fat, you know—and there he lay,
as flat as a flounder, on the floor. What
a tittering went round the meeting house,
when the boys found out the meaning of
that noise.

But the joke did not end here. A
good many of the people thought that