hey all saw it, and they waited for the result. It was an awful
long prayer, and the church was hot, the tenor was no iceberg himself,
and shoemakers' wax melts at ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

The minister finally got to the amen, and read a hymn, the choir coughed
and all rose up. The chair that the tenor was in stuck to him like a
brother, and came right along and nearly broke his suspenders. It was
the tenor to bat, and as the great organ struck up he pushed the chair
off of his person, looked around to see if he had saved his pants, and
began to sing, and the rest of the choir came near bursting. The tenor
was called out on three strikes by the umpire, and the alto had to sail
in, and while she was singing the tenor began to feel of first base to
see what was the matter. When he got his hand on the shoemaker's warm
wax his heart smote him, and he looked daggers at the soprano, but she
put on a pious look and got her mouth ready to sing "Hold the Fort."

Well, the tenor sat down on a white handkerchief before he went home,
and he got home without anybody seeing him, and he has been, as the old
saying is, "laying" for the soprano ever since to get even.

It is customary in all first-class choirs for the male singers to
furnish candy for the lady singers, and the other day the tenor went
to a candy factory and had a peppermint lozenger made with about half a
teaspoonful of cayenne pepper in the centre of it. On Christmas he took
his lozenger to church and concluded to get even with the soprano if he
died for it.

Candy had been passed around, and just before the hymn was given out
in which the soprano was to sing a solo, "Nearer My God to Thee," the
wicked wretch gave her the loaded lozenger. She put it in her mouth and
nibbed off the edges, and was rolling it as a sweet morsel under her
tongue, when the organ struck up and they all arose. While the choir was
skirmishing on the first part of the verse and getting scored up for the
solo, she chewed what was left of the candy and swallowed it.

Well, if a democratic torch-light procession had marched unbidden down
her throat she couldn't have been any more astonished. She leaned over
to pick up her handkerchief and spit the candy out, but there was enough
pepper left around the selvage of her mouth to have pickled a peck of
chow-chow.

It was her turn to sing, and as she rose and took the book, her eyes
filled with tears, her voice trembled, her face was as red