hand.

"That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. If you would come to the
parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none,
but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got. You're
here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage
folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get
converted."

The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement,
looked helplessly at the window. It was too small. And slender active
Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the door.

"No, you can't escape. You're done for this time,--it's the straight and
narrow from this on. Now listen,--it's really very simple. And you need
it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk,
you can't see how terribly disgusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig
is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the
landscape. You're a--you're a--" She fished vainly for words, longing
for Lark's literary flow of language.

"I'm not drunk," he stammered.

"No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but
you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You
can't stop drinking--"

"I could," he blustered feebly, "I could if I wanted to."

"Oh, no, you couldn't. You haven't backbone enough. You couldn't stop to
save your life. But," Carol's voice lowered a little, and she grew shy,
but very earnest, "but God can stop you, because He has enough backbone
for a hundred thousand--er, jellyfishes. And--you see, it's like this.
God made the world, and put the people in it. Now listen carefully, Ben,
and I'll make it just as simple as possible so it can sink through the
smell and get at you. God made the world, and put the people in it. And
the people sinned, worshiped idols and went back on God, and--did a lot
of other mean things. So God was in honor bound to punish them, for
that's the law, and God's the judge that can't be bought. He had to
inflict punishment. But God and Jesus talked it over, and they felt
awfully bad about it, for they kind of liked the people anyhow." She
stared at the disreputable figure slouching on the chunk of wood. "It's
very hard to understand, very. I should think they would despise
us,--some of us," she added significantly. "I'm sure I should. But
anyhow they didn't. Are you getting me?"

The bleary eyes were really fastened intently on the girl's br