d in my coat and gesture with the other
and make it more impressive,--'and then,' I says, 'just think of them
other churches. We won't do a thing to 'em. That Baptist preacher thinks
he's a wizz because he makes six hundred calls a year. You just wait
till the nigger gets to haulin' John Henry here around town and loadin'
him up with rapid-fire conversations. That Baptist gent will look like
thirty cents, that's what he'll look like. He'll think he's Rojessvinsky
and the Japanese fleet's after him. And the Campbellites think they done
it when they got their new pastor, with a voice like a Bull o' Bashan
comin' down hill. Just wait till we load a few of them extra-sized
records with megaphone attachment into our pastor, and gear him up to
two hundred and fifty words a minute, and then where, oh, where is
Mister Campbellite, as the feller says.

"'Besides, brethren, this pastor, havin' no family, won't need his back
fence fixed; in fact, he won't need the parsonage; we can rent it, and
the proceeds will go toward operatin' expenses.

"'What we need to do,' I says in conclusion, 'is to get in line, get up
to date, give the people what they want. We have no way of judgin' the
future but by the past, as the feller says. We know they ain't no human
bein' can measure up to our requirements, so let's take a fall out of
science, and have enterprise and business sense.'"

J.P. Wamsley reached for a match.

"Did they accept your offer?" asked his companion. "I am anxious to know
how your plan worked. It has many points in its favor, I confess."

"No," replied J.P. Wamsley, as he meditatively puffed his cigar and
seemed to be lovingly reviewing the past. "No, they didn't. I'm kind o'
sorry, too. I'd like to have seen the thing tried myself. But," he
added, with a slow and solemn wink, "they passed a unanimous resolution
callin' back the old pastor at an increased salary."

"I should say, then, that your invention was a success."

"Well, I didn't lose out on it, anyhow. I've got John Henry rigged up
with a new bunch of whiskers, and posin' in my show-window as Dewitt,
signin' the peace treaty, in an elegant suit of all-wool at $11.50."

THE BOHEMIANS OF BOSTON

BY GELETT BURGESS

The "Orchids" were as tough a crowd
As Boston anywhere allowed;
It was a club of wicked men--
The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten;
They drank their soda colored green,
They talked of "Art," and "Philistine,"