do anything to carry his point."

"Isn't that putting it rather strong, Brother Quickset?"

"Of course it isn't. Don't I know, I should like to ask? Don't I
always hire him myself?"

"Oh!" That was the only word the other deacon spoke, but his eyes
danced, and he twisted his lips into an odd grin.

"Oh, get out!" exclaimed the pillar of orthodoxy. "You needn't take it
that way. Of course what I ask him to do is only right: if I didn't
think so, I wouldn't ask him."

"Of course not, brother. But think a moment: do you really believe that
any form of professional pride would persuade that young man--proud as
Lucifer, and just as conceited and headstrong, a young man who always
has argued against religion and against every belief you and I hold
dear--to rise for prayers in an inquiry meeting, and afterwards say it
was the Christian life of Sam Kimper,--a man whom a high-born fellow
like Bartram must believe as near the animals as humanity ever is,--to
say it was the Christian life of Sam Kimper that convinced him of the
supernatural origin and saving power of Christianity?"

"I can't believe he put it that way: there must be something else
behind it. I'm going to find out for myself and do it at once, too.
This sort of nonsense must be stopped. Why, if men go to taking
everything Jesus Christ said just as He said it, everything in the
world in the way of business is going to be turned upside down."

Away went Deacon Quickset to Bartram's office, and was so fortunate as
to find the lawyer in. He went right at his subject:

"Well, young man, you've been in nice business, haven't you?--trying to
go up to the throne of grace right behind a jail-bird, while the
leaders and teachers whom the Lord has selected have been spurned by
you for years!"

Reynolds Bartram was too new a convert to have changed his old self and
manner to any great extent: so he flushed angrily, and retorted,--

"One thief is about as good as another, Deacon Quickset."

Then it was the deacon's turn to look angry. The two men faced each
other for a moment with flashing eyes, lowering brows, and hard-set
jaws. The deacon was the first to recover himself: he took a chair, and
said,--

"Maybe I haven't heard the story rightly. What I came around for was to
get it from first hands. Would you mind telling me?"

"I suppose you allude to my conversion?"

"Yes," said the deacon, with a look of doubt, "I suppose that's what we
will have to call it,