Nickie was silent for a moment—for the preacher was Nicholas Crips, garbed in an old suit of his master's—then he turned calmly and said:
"This gentleman, brothers and sisters, is the Reverend James Nippit, the founder of our noble much desire to say a few words. I desire to say mission. He desires to say a few words."
"Yes, my good people," cried James, "I do very that the Young Men's Mission is one of the finest and most worthy institutions in this city to and to express the abhorrence I feel for those villains who make use of the credit the Mission has won for their own infamous purposes." He went on to explain how the Mission was being robbed, and wound up dramatically with the words: "And this man, this man at my side, this man who has addressed you in the guise of a minister, is one of the most wicked and detestable of the impostors."
But in consequence of his oratorical training, and his clergyman's inability to come quickly to a point the denunciation lost its effect, for Nickie was not at the speaker's side; he had gone. He had taken the Rev. James Nippit's buggy, and driven off, and he carried the collection with him.
The buggy was safe in the carriage-house when the Rev. James returned home, but Nickie was seeking fields and pastors new.
CHAPTER V.
THE INCIDENT IN BIGGS'S BUILDINGS.
THE tall, spare man in rusty, clerical raiment was going from room to room in one of the huge, city buildings where Business people, gregarious as sparrows, nest in hundreds.
The tall, spare man was cleanly shaved, he wore a very white collar, his expression combined benignity with a certain ascetic calm. He carried two or three books in his left hand, pressed against his heart with a sort of caress, an affection very common with gentlemen of the cloth, for Nicholas Crips had a keen eye for character, and his various impersonations were fairly true to type, and of no mean dramatic quality.
Nickie the Kid knocked gently at an office door, a peremptory voice called "Come in," and he opened the door very softly, entered, closed the door very gently behind him, placed his crippled belltopper (rim uppermost) on the small counter that walled visitors off from the severe gentleman dictating to a blonde typewriter and said, with clerical unction.