"Come, come! Putting his neck into the noose for mere Quixotic feeling? And who, pray, in this Godforsaken town, should he be sacrificing himself for?" the doctor asked satirically.
"That's the rub," said the lawyer. "Nobody. Yet I hang by my proposition."
"Well, he'll hang by something less tenuous, I'm afraid. But it won't be your fault. The crazy evangelist was only an incident. He merely served to jolt us back to the normal. By the way, did you hear him splutter after he got out?"
"No."
"You remember the story he told the other night of the minister who was caught gambling on his own communion table? Well, Hugh Stires is not only the Reverend Henry Something-or-other, but he is that man, too! The crack-brained old idiot would have told the tale all over again, only the crowd hustled him.
"There he is now," he said suddenly, as a light sprang up and voices broke out on the opposite corner. "The gang is standing by. I see your friend Barney McGinn," he added, with a grim enjoyment. "I doubt if there are many converts to-night."
Even as he spoke, there came a shout of laughter and warning. The spectators scattered in all directions, and a stream of water from a well-directed hose deluged the itinerant and his music-box.
Ten minutes later the street preacher, drenched and furious, was trundling his melodeon toward Funeral Hollow, on his way to the coast.