. someways . . . but I was never mean or tough or anything like that . . . just had a good time.

“Jim—what right’s he got telling me where I head in? Trouble with him is, he thinks he knows it all. I guess these wise old coots that’ve written all these books about the Bible, I guess they know more’n one smart-aleck Kansas agnostic!

“Yes, sir! The whole crowd! Turned to me like I was an All–American preacher!

“Wouldn’t be so bad to be a preacher if you had a big church and— Lot easier than digging out law-cases and having to put it over a jury and another lawyer maybe smarter’n you are.

“The crowd have to swallow what you tell ’em in a pulpit, and no back-talk or cross-examination allowed!”

For a second he snickered, but:

“Not nice to talk that way. Even if a fellow don’t do what’s right himself, no excuse for his sneering at fellows that do, like preachers. . . . There’s where Jim makes his mistake.

“Not worthy to be a preacher. But if Jim Lefferts thinks for one single solitary second that I’m afraid to be a preacher because HE pulls a lot of gaff—I guess I know how I felt when I stood up and had all them folks hollering and rejoicing—I guess I know whether I experienced salvation or not! And I don’t require any James Blaine Lefferts to tell me, neither!”

Thus for an hour of dizzy tramping; now colder with doubt than with the prairie wind, now winning back some of the exaltation of his spiritual adventure, but always knowing that he had to confess to an inexorable Jim.

4

It was after one. Surely Jim would be asleep, and by next day there might be a miracle. Morning always promises miracles.

He eased the door open, holding it with a restraining hand. There was a light on the washstand beside Jim’s bed, but it was a small kerosene lamp turned low. He tiptoed in, his tremendous feet squeaking.

Jim suddenly sat up, turned up the wick. He was red-nosed, red-eyed, and coughing. He stared, and unmoving, by the table, Elmer stared back.

Jim spoke abruptly:

“You son of a sea-cook! You’ve gone and done it! You’ve been SAVED! You’ve let them hornswoggle you into being a Baptist witch-doctor! I’m through! You can go—to heaven!”

“Aw, say now, Jim, lissen!”

“I’ve listened enough. I’ve got nothing more to say. And now you listen to me!” said Jim, and he spoke with tongues for three minutes straight.

Most of the night they struggled for the freedom of Elmer’s soul, with Jim not quite losing yet never winning. As Jim’s face had hovered at the gospel meeting between him and the evangelist, blotting out the vision of the cross, so now the faces of his mother and Judson hung sorrowful and misty before him, a veil across Jim’s pleading.

Elmer slept four hours and went out, staggering with weariness, to bring cinnamon buns, a wienie sandwich, and a tin pail of coffee for Jim’s breakfast. They were laboring windily into new arguments, Jim a little more stubborn, Elmer ever more irritable, when no less a dignitary than President the Rev. Dr. Willoughby Quarles, chin whisker, glacial shirt, bulbous waistcoat and all, plunged under the fat soft wing of the landlady.

The president shook hands a number of times with everybody, he eyebrowed the landlady out of the room, and boomed in his throaty pulpit voice, with belly-rumblings and long-drawn R’s and L’s, a voice very deep and owlish, most holy and fitting to the temple which he created merely by his presence, rebuking to flippancy and chuckles and the puerile cynicisms of the Jim Leffertses—a noise somewhere between the evening bells and the morning jackass:

“Oh, Brother Elmer, that was a brave thing you did! I have never seen a braver! For a great strong man of your gladiatorial powers to not be afraid to humble himself! And your example will do a great deal of good, a grrrrrreat deal of good! And we must catch and hold it. You are to speak at the Y.M.C.A. tonight—special meeting to reenforce the results of our wonderful Prayer Week.”

“Oh, gee, President, I can’t!” Elmer groaned.

“Oh, yes, Brother, you must. You MUST! It’s already announced.