in' ain't so hefty then. Sort of outdoor
stage fright, I reckon. Say, do you believe preachin' ever did much
good?"

"Sometimes I've thought it did."

"I seen a case once," began Overland reminiscently. "It was Toledo
Blake. He was a kind of bum middleweight scrapper when he was workin' at
it. When he wasn't trainin' he was a kind of locoed heavyweight--stewed
most of the time. It was one winter night in Toledo. Me and him went
into one of them 'Come-In-Stranger' rescue joints. 'Course, they was
singin' hymns and prayin' in there, but it was warmer than outside, so
we stayed.

"After a while up jumps the foreman of that gospel outfit. His foretop
was long, and he wore it over one ear like a hoss's when the wind is
blowin'.

"He commenced wrong, I guess. He points down the room to where me and
Toledo was settin', and he hollers, 'Go to the ant, you slugger!
Consider her game and get hep to it,' or somethin' similar.

"That word 'slugger' kind of jarred Toledo. He jumps up kind of mad.
'Mebby I am a slugger, and mebby I ain't, but you needn't to get
personal about it. Anyhow, I ain't got no aunt.'

"'The text,' says the hoss-faced guy on the platform, 'the text, my
brother, is semaphorical.'

"Toledo couldn't understand that, so I whispers, 'Set down, you mutt!
Semaphore is a sign ain't it? Well, he's givin' you the sign talk. Set
down and listen.'

"Toledo, he hadn't had a drink for a week, and he was naturally feelin'
kind of ugly. 'All right,' he growls at the preacher guy. 'All right. I
pass.'

"'Ah, my brother!' says the hoss-faced guy. 'I see the spirits is at
work.' That kind of got Toledo's goat.

"'Your dope is _bum_,' says Toledo. 'I ain't had a drink for a week.
First you tell a fella to go see his aunt, when she's been planted for
ten years. Then--'

"'Listen, brother!' says the preacher guy. 'I referred to ants--little,
industrious critters that are examples of thrift to the idle, the
indignant, the--'

"'Hold on!' says Toledo. 'Do you mean red ants or black ants?' And I
seen that a spark had touched Toledo's brainbox and that he was
wrastlin' with somethin' that felt like thinkin'.

"'Either, my brother,' says the hoss-faced guy, smilin' clear up to his
back teeth.

"'Well, you're drawin' your dope from the wrong can,' says Toledo,
shufflin' for the door. 'Because,' says he, turnin' in the doorway,
'because, how in hell is a fella goin' to find any ants with two feet of
snow on the groun