"Not so, Brother Brannum! Not so!" exclaimed the other. "There's some furrows on your forrud, and a handful of bird- tracks below your eyes that would ill become me; and I'm plumper in the make-up, you'll allow."
"Yes, yes, Brother Johnny Roach," said Brother Brannum, frowning a little; "but what of that? Death takes no time to feel for wrinkles and furrows, and nuther does plumpness stand in the way. Look at Brother Felix Kendrick,—took off in the very pulse and power of his prime, you may say. Yet, Providence permitting, I am to hark to his funeral to-day."
"Why, so am I,—so am I," exclaimed Brother Roach. "We seem to agree, Brother Brannum, like the jay-bird and the joree,—one in the tree and t'other on the ground."
Brother Brannum's grim sense of superiority showed itself in his calm smile.
"Yet I'll not deny," continued Brother Roach, flinging his coat, which he had been carrying on his arm, across his shoulder, "that sech discourses go ag'in the grain It frets me in the mind for to hear what thundering great men folks git to be arter they are dead, though I hope we may both follow suit, Brother Brannum."
"But how, Brother Johnny Roach?"
"Why, by the grace of big discourses, Brother Brannum. There 'a many a preacher could close down the Bible on his hankcher and make our very misdeeds smell sweet as innocence. It's all in the lift of the eyebrow, and the gesticures of the hand. So old Neighbour Harper says, and he's been a lawyer and a schoolmaster in his day and time.".
"Still," said Brother Brannum, as if acknowledging the arguments, "I think Sister Kendrick is jestified in her desires."
"Oh, yes,—oh, yes!" replied Brother Roach, heartily; "none more so. Felix Kendrick's ways is in good shape for some preacher wi' a glib tongue. Felix was a good man; he wanted his just dues, but not if to take them would hurt a man. He was neighbourly; who more so? And, sir, when you got to rastlin' wi' trouble, he'd find you and fetch you out. I only hope the Chinee preacher'll be jedgmatical enough for to let us off wi' the simple truth."
"They say," said Brother Brannum, "that he's a man full of grace and fire."