“If some have been brought to the throne of grace through my exhortations, it’s only the Lord’s mercy. I make no boast. I will be humble. I will take my basket and go.”
He stooped to pick up the basket, above whose rim peeped four little Guinea chicks. The Poet’s gentle hand restrained him.
“Perhaps you’d better go, Mr. Blodgett—presently. But if I were you I’d leave the basket, and—er—its contents.”
“I—I don’t quite understand,” said Si Blodgett weakly.
“Why,” said the Poet mildly, “one who is engaged in your chosen work of—er—of saving souls ought to neglect no opportunity of pointing a useful moral. Now, here is this little matter of circumstantial evidence which seems to convict a—er—a holy man of robbing his neighbor’s hennery.”
“Prove it! prove it! I defy ye!” snarled Si Blodgett.
“Be calm, Mr. Blodgett. Let us consider the subject from the standpoint of the exhorter. Imagine yourself addressing an assemblage of young men—young men who are a little wild, we will say, who have raided watermelon patches, and are in a fair way to break into their neighbors’ henneries. Think of the effect upon those young minds when you tell them about the lost key of a looted henroost found in your pocket!”
Si Blodgett laughed. “What does a key prove?”
“Then,” continued the Poet, “you go on to tell about the contributory evidence—the fact that the real thief wore dark trousers with a blue stripe, just like your own.”
“How do ye know he did?” snarled Si Blodgett, casting an uneasy glance down the legs of his dark trousers with their blue stripe.