On the night of his release from jail he beat the barrier, and by morning he was well on his way to St. Louis, resolved to explore the Pacific coast for fields wherein his peculiar abilities might enable him to reap the harvest of cash without which life to him was naught.
En route West, Honey Tone managed to keep one state ahead of his reputation. Thus he avoided the iron impedimenta which the laws of the land drape around the ankles and feet that stray from the straight and narrow trail—around wrists and hands whose idleness affords the devil welcome opportunity to function as a labour agent.
Honey Tone's first week in Oakland found him preaching to a small congregation. On the following Sunday he announced to his flock that subscriptions for a church building fund would be accepted, beginning forthwith.
"Temp'rary an' perm'nent." The announcement followed a long prayer during which the uplifter's face wore the same holy expression as that which adorns the first stages of a sneeze. "Rev'und" Honey Tone Boone opened his eyes and tamed his vocabulary to the vernacular current among his hearers. "Temp'rary an' perm'nent. Weekly refun's on all temp'rary subscriptions, togetheh with int'res' at a hund'ed per cent. You doubles yo' 'vestment, like de boy wid de ten talents."
The dangling bait was presently engulfed.
The subscription books were kept open throughout the week. Facilities for subscribing were offered through agencies established in the pastor's quarters, in two barber shops and three pool rooms.
On the following Sunday, after a service devoted largely to discussion of temporal problems which afflict the flesh here in this vale of tears, Honey Tone paid his subscribers their original contributions and added an equal sum for interest at a hund'ed per cent.
The books were flooded with new subscriptions within the next fifteen minutes. The six agencies did a rushing business all during the week. On Friday Honey Tone counted his cash and decided that another week could be managed. Then—exit.
After the next Sunday services, owing to an eight that looked like a three, he was short five hundred dollars in the item of interest.
Explanations led to retreat, and Honey Tone retreated to a hotel in San Francisco. His flight therefrom was interrupted by a delegation from a mob which visited him on the following night. He beat the delegation out of the lobby of the hotel because, in the emergency, his feet acted more quickly than his head. He went away from there leading his flock.