“With a telephone?”
“Not at all. A telephone would be out of place in the hands of my reverend uncles. I can’t precisely tell you why, but you’ll have to take my word that it would. No, what I propose to do is to carry them megaphones.”
“Megaphones, Absalom!”
“Certainly. Megaphones will become them. They are sturdy, seafaring sort of men—”
“Why, they’ve never seen the sea!”
“Don’t be so literal, dear. They are sturdy, space-roaming, wilderness-faring men in whose hands megaphones will be appropriate. I shall strap one on each side of my horse and set forth—to-morrow.”
“But will you get your sermon prepared?”
“I shall prepare it while I’m riding. Seriously, Barbara, the wild man in me is uppermost. You have tried to civilize me. Our young son has labored to do the same thing. But you scratch a Russian and find a Tartar; and you scratch a mountain man and you find a rover.”
“And you’ve been scratched, wild man?”
“I have. I’m off to-morrow. Bear with me, dear. I’ll come back as tame as a house cat.”