g he would say, church or no church, would be
something that would have to be spelt with asterisks; but at that
moment Norman encountered his wife's eye and he fell back with a thud
on Holy Writ. "You whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake,
and cast Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled
that unhappy pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr.
Pryor's once ruddy face was ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the
law on you for this," he gasped.

"Do--do," roared Norman, making another rush. But Mr. Pryor was gone.
He had no desire to fall a second time into the hands of an avenging
militarist. Norman turned to the platform for one graceless, triumphant
moment.

"Don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he boomed. "You couldn't do
it--nobody would expect it of the cloth--but somebody had to do it. You
know you're glad I threw him out--he couldn't be let go on yammering
and yodelling and yawping sedition and treason. Sedition and
treason--somebody had to deal with it. I was born for this hour--I've
had my innings in church at last. I can sit quiet for another sixty
years now! Go ahead with your meeting, parsons. I reckon you won't be
troubled with any more pacifist prayers."

But the spirit of devotion and reverence had fled. Both ministers
realized it and realized that the only thing to do was to close the
meeting quietly and let the excited people go. Mr. Meredith addressed a
few earnest words to the boys in khaki--which probably saved Mr.
Pryor's windows from a second onslaught--and Mr. Arnold pronounced an
incongruous benediction, at least he felt it was incongruous, for he
could not at once banish from his memory the sight of gigantic Norman
Douglas shaking the fat, pompous little Whiskers-on-the-moon as a huge
mastiff might shake an overgrown puppy. And he knew that the same
picture was in everybody's mind. Altogether the union prayer-meeting
could hardly be called an unqualified success. But it was remembered in
Glen St. Mary when scores of orthodox and undisturbed assemblies were
totally forgotten.

"You will never, no, never, Mrs. Dr. dear, hear me call Norman Douglas
a pagan again," said Susan when she reached home. "If Ellen Douglas is
not a proud woman this night she should be."

"Norman Douglas did a wholly indefensible thing," said the doctor.
"Pryor should have been let severely alone until the meeting was over.
Then later on, his own minister and session