"Dog!" he shrieked. "Blasphemer!"
I summoned all my American sang-froid.
"Dog," I agreed, "inasmuch as I follow your daughter like a dog, humbly, lovingly. But blasphemer? Say rather worshipper. For I worship Bethulah."
"Then worship her like the others," he roared. Had I not heard him pray, I should have expected the hoary patriarch to collapse after such an outburst.
"Thank you," I said. "I don't want her to fly up to heaven for me. I want her to come down to earth—from her turret."
"She will not come down to any earthly spouse," he said more gently. "Quite the reverse."
"Then I will make a soul-ascension," I said defiantly.
"Get back to hell, spawn of Satan!" he thundered again. "Or since, strange son of the New World, you neither believe nor disbelieve, hover eternally between hell and heaven!"
"Meantime I am here," I said good-humouredly, "between you and your daughter. Come, come, be sensible; you are a very old man. Where in Zloczszol will you find a superior husband for your child?"
"The Lord, to whom she is consecrated, forgive you your blasphemy," he said, in a changed voice, and rang his bell, so that the next applicant came in and I had to go.