ut Woman in the Front Row put on her Eye-Glasses and leaned forward
so as not to miss Anything. A Venerable Harness Dealer over at the
Right nodded his Head solemnly. He seemed to recognize the Quotation.
Members of the Congregation glanced at one another as if to say: "This
is certainly Hot Stuff!"

[Illustration: GOOD AND PLENTY]

The Preacher wiped his Brow and said he had no Doubt that every one
within the Sound of his Voice remembered what Quarolius had said,
following the same Line of Thought. It was Quarolius who disputed the
Contention of the great Persian Theologian Ramtazuk, that the Soul in
its reaching out after the Unknowable was guided by the Spiritual
Genesis of Motive rather than by mere Impulse of Mentality. The Preacher
didn't know what all This meant, and he didn't care, but you can rest
easy that the Pew-Holders were On in a minute. He talked it off in
just the Way that Cyrano talks when he gets Roxane so Dizzy that she
nearly falls off the Piazza.

[Illustration: VENERABLE HARNESS DEALER]

The Parishioners bit their Lower Lips and hungered for more First-Class
Language. They had paid their Money for Tall Talk and were prepared to
solve any and all Styles of Delivery. They held on to the Cushions and
seemed to be having a Nice Time.

The Preacher quoted copiously from the Great Poet Amebius. He recited 18
lines of Greek and then said: "How true this is!" And not a Parishioner
batted an Eye.

It was Amebius whose Immortal Lines he recited in order to prove the
Extreme Error of the Position assumed in the Controversy by the Famous
Italian, Polenta.

He had them Going, and there wasn't a Thing to it. When he would get
tired of faking Philosophy he would quote from a Celebrated Poet of
Ecuador or Tasmania or some other Seaport Town. Compared with this
Verse, all of which was of the same School as the Icelandic Masterpiece,
the most obscure and clouded Passage in Robert Browning was like a
Plate-Glass Front in a State Street Candy Store just after the Colored
Boy gets through using the Chamois.

After that he became Eloquent, and began to get rid of long Boston Words
that hadn't been used before that Season. He grabbed a rhetorical Roman
Candle in each Hand and you couldn't see him for the Sparks.

After which he sunk his Voice to a Whisper and talked about the Birds
and the Flowers. Then, although there was no Cue for him to Weep, he
shed a few real Tears. And there wasn't a dry Glove in the C