“I read about it—in a Chicago Sunday paper—three weeks ago.”
“But you knew before that there was a Company B down here in this town?”
Without raising his head or baring his face, the other nodded. Judge Priest overturned his coffee cup as he got to his feet, but took no heed of the resultant damage to the cloth on the table and the fronts of his white trouser legs.
“Boys,” he cried out so shrilly, so eagerly, so joyously, that they all jumped, “when you foller after Holy Writ you can't never go fur wrong. You're liable to breed a miracle. A while ago we took a lesson from the Parable of the Rich Man that give a dinner; and—lo and behold!—another parable and a better parable—yes, the sweetest parable of 'em all—has come to pass and been repeated here 'mongst us without our ever knowin' it or even suspectin' it. The Prodigal Son didn't enjoy the advantage of havin' a Chicago Sunday paper to read, but in due season he came back home—that other Prodigal did; and it stands written in the text that he was furgiven, and that a feast was made fur him in the house of his fathers.”
His tone changed to one of earnest demand: “Lycurgus Reese, finish the roll call of this company—finish it right now, this minute—the way it oughter be finished!”
“Why, Judge Priest,” said Professor Reese, still in the dark and filled with wonderment, “it is already finished!”
As though angered almost beyond control, the judge snapped back:
“It ain't finished, neither. It ain't been rightly finished from the very beginnin' of these dinners. It ain't finished till you call the very last name that's on that list.”
“But, Judge——”
“But nothin'! You call that last name, Ly-curgus Reese; and you be almighty quick about it!”