"I don't know about you, Japhe. A fair half of the time you have me cornered; and the other half I'm wondering if you are just ordinary, canting hypocrite, like the majority of 'the brethren.'"
"Now see here, Tom-Jeff, you know a heap better'n that! First and fo'most, the majority ain't the majority, not by three sights and a horn-blow. Hit don't take more'n one good, perseverin' hypocrite in the chu'ch to spile the name o' chu'ch-member as fur as ye can holler it. You been on a railroad train and seen the con-duc-tor havin' a furss with the feller 'at pays for one seat and tries to hog four, and you've set back and said, 'My gosh! what a lot o' swine the human race is when hit gits away f'om home!' And right at that ve'y minute, mebbe, ther' was forty-five 'r fifty other people in that cyar goin' erlong, mindin' their own business, and not hoggin' any more 'n they paid for."
Tom smiled. "And you think that's the way it is in the church, do you?"
"I don't think nare' thing about hit; I know sufferin' well that's the how of it. Lord forgive me! didn't I let one scribe-an'-Pharisee keep me out o' the Isra'l o' God for nigh on to twenty year?"
"Who was it?" asked Tom, tranquilly curious.
"That ther' Jim Bledsoe, Brother Bill Layne's brother-in-law. He kep' Brother Bill out, too, for a right smart spell."
Tom was turning the memory pages half-absently.
"Let me see," he said. "Didn't I hear something about your whaling the everlasting daylights out of Bledsoe sometime last winter?"
Japheth hung his head after the manner of one who has spoiled a good argument by overstating it.
"That ther's jest like me," he said disgustedly. "I nev' do know enough to quit when I git thoo. Ain't it somewher's in the Bible 'at it says some folks is bawn troublesome, and some goes round huntin' for trouble, and some has trouble jammed up ag'inst 'em?"