er almost completed at the Forks.
Really, it was very fine," continued the Convener, allowing his
enthusiasm to rise. "It renews one's faith in the reality of religion to
see a man jump into his work like that. They didn't pay him his salary
the first half year, but he omitted to mention that in his report."

The Superintendent sat up straight. "Is he behind yet?"

"No. I mentioned the matter to Fink and explained that if the field
failed it was Boyle that would suffer. His language--well," the Convener
laughed reminiscently, "you have seen Hank?"

"Yes. I've seen him, I've heard him, and I've read him. But let us hope
that his deeds will atone in a measure for his broken English. But,"
continued the Superintendent, "you have had Boyle ordained, have you
not?"

"Yes. We got him ordained," replied the Convener, beginning to chuckle.
A delighted, choking chuckle it was. Any missionary who had worked in
his Presbytery would recognize the Convener in the dark by that chuckle.
It began, if one were quick to observe, with a wrinkling about the
corners of the sharp blue eyes, then became audible in a succession of
small explosions that seemed to have their origin in the region of the
esophagus and to threaten the larynx with disruption, until relief was
found in a wide-throated peal that subsided in a second series of small
explosions and gradually rumbled off into silence somewhere in the
region of the diaphragm, leaving only the wrinkles about the corners
of the blue eyes as a kind of warning that the whole process might be
repeated upon sufficient provocation. "Yes, we got him ordained," he
repeated when the chuckle had passed. "I was glad of your explanatory
note about him. It guided us in our arrangements for examination."

"What happened?" inquired the Superintendent, leaning forward. He dearly
loved a yarn, and he sorely hated to lose any of the more humorous
incidents of missionary life, not only for the joy they brought him,
but also because they furnished him with ammunition for his Eastern
campaigns.

"Well, it was funny," said the Convener, his lips twitching and his eyes
wrinkling, "though at one time it looked like an Assembly case with
all seven of us up before the bar. You know McPherson, our latest
importation in the way of ordained men? Somehow he had got wind of
Boyle's trouble with the Presbytery in the East. McPherson is a fine
fellow and doing good work."

"Yes," assented the Superintendent, "he's