combination of easy conscience and the flashy part
of a "college" education. On the day of his release he half regretted
his education. Ignorance cursed the individual with work, but it left
him free of the higher responsibilities and the more acute penalties of
transgressions, and just then Honey Tone wished devoutly that he was a
field hand. He craved a black complexion instead of the halfway colour
that barred him from the unquestioning comradeship of white and black
alike.

On the night of his release from jail he beat the barrier, and by
morning he was well on his way to St. Louis, resolved to explore the
Pacific coast for fields wherein his peculiar abilities might enable
him to reap the harvest of cash without which life to him was naught.

En route West, Honey Tone managed to keep one state ahead of his
reputation. Thus he avoided the iron impedimenta which the laws of the
land drape around the ankles and feet that stray from the straight and
narrow trail--around wrists and hands whose idleness affords the devil
welcome opportunity to function as a labour agent.

Honey Tone's first week in Oakland found him preaching to a small
congregation. On the following Sunday he announced to his flock that
subscriptions for a church building fund would be accepted, beginning
forthwith.

"Temp'rary an' perm'nent." The announcement followed a long prayer
during which the uplifter's face wore the same holy expression as that
which adorns the first stages of a sneeze. "Rev'und" Honey Tone Boone
opened his eyes and tamed his vocabulary to the vernacular current
among his hearers. "Temp'rary an' perm'nent. Weekly refun's on all
temp'rary subscriptions, togetheh with int'res' at a hund'ed per cent.
You doubles yo' 'vestment, like de boy wid de ten talents."

The dangling bait was presently engulfed.

The subscription books were kept open throughout the week. Facilities
for subscribing were offered through agencies established in the
pastor's quarters, in two barber shops and three pool rooms.

On the following Sunday, after a service devoted largely to discussion
of temporal problems which afflict the flesh here in this vale of
tears, Honey Tone paid his subscribers their original contributions and
added an equal sum for interest at a hund'ed per cent.

The books were flooded with new subscriptions within the next fifteen
minutes. The six agencies did a rushing business all during the week.
On Friday Honey Tone counted