Not even Jimmy Martin himself had such a vocabulary of arresting and original slang as “Billy” Williams. His sermons reeked with it when he felt that the occasion warranted its use and even the most conservative of clergymen who at first frowned at such language in the pulpit were eventually obliged to admit that it had its place in a white-hot appeal made to a vast miscellaneous audience seated in an auditorium as long as a city block, an audience which would unquestionably remain unmoved if preached to in the chaste and austere phrases of the conventional pulpit orator. The downright sincerity of the man and the compelling force of his powerful personality turned scoffers into ardent followers and made him indeed a mighty power in any city which he honored with a visit.
Early on the Sunday evening following the events hitherto chronicled a great crowd surged about the entrances to the huge wooden auditorium which sprawled over a lot in the environs of the city. It was a heterogeneous crowd not dissimilar in its composition to the other crowds which flocked in the summer to the great white tents which the circus pitched on this very spot. Most of those comprising it were quiet and orderly—apparently a little self-conscious of the necessity for decorum—but there were, here and there, a group of noisy and irrepressible Spirits, all of them young, who seemed to regard the occasion as one affording unequalled opportunities for a lark. The doors had not yet been opened for the evening service and the throng grew to enormous proportions with each passing minute.
An acute observer in an aeroplane circling over the particular group which awaited entrance on the north side of the tabernacle would have noticed a little cluster of femininity in the front ranks which stood out vividly from the rather dull and neutral tone of the rest of the crowd like some brilliant pattern woven into a field of grayish tinge.
There were rich purples, bright reds and gay greens in this little oasis of color and from it there arose light laughter and frivolous chatter, the echoes of which carried to the shocked ears of those more serious minded persons who patiently waited on its edges for the onrush which always followed the opening of the doors. Jimmy Martin stood in the direct center of the oasis in his capacity as Personal Custodian of the Big Idea and tried to soothe those turbulent spirits among the members of the chorus of the “Keep Moving” company who were beginning to chafe at the delay.
“Say, young fellow,” drawled a svelte creature whose tawny hair glowed like an aureole as the last rays from the setting sun caught and kindled it, “I haven’t stood as long as this since I quit cloak and suit modeling to decorate the drama. Where do you get this stuff anyway? What do you think we are—a troupe of trained seals?”
“That’s what I say,” broke in a young person with the soft eyes of a Rubens’ seraph. “I called off a perfectly good dinner date with a dandy little Harvard rah-rah just because Bartlett made a personal matter out of this thing and here we are standing around with the other hicks waiting for the side-show to begin and wasting perfectly good and valuable time. Press agents always did get my goat.”
“Mine, too,” remarked a languid houri whose pallid face was set off by a pair of enormous green earrings. “In New York I wouldn’t think of standing in line for a chance to see the signing of the Declaration of Independence with the original cast, and here I am getting corns on my tootsies waiting to listen to a fellow that anyone can hear any time for nothing at all. Really, girls, I don’t think any of us are in our right minds.”
“I know it’s a nuisance, ladies,” said Jimmy urbanely, “but when you see the smear that I think we’re goin’ to land in tomorrow’s papers you’ll be thankful that you stuck along. I want you all to sit in a group by yourselves and don’t any of you try to be too shrinking. I want the newspaper bunch to find you’re there without my tellin’ ’em. Then it’ll look as if your bein’ there is more on the level than otherwise. When it comes to the singin’ I want all of you, please, to cut in for all it’s worth just as if Bartlett was sittin’ down in front at a dress rehearsal.”
“When the trail hittin’ begins just sit tight and register intense interest in the proceedings. If any of you laugh it’ll spoil the whole arrangement. I was at one of these meetin’s out in Denver a couple of years ago and when those folks start comin’ down the aisles believe me it ain’t anything to get funny about. If any of the newspaper crowd get to you when it’s all over I want whoever does any talkin’ to say that you’re all profoundly impressed with everything and all that, and that you’re all comin’ again tomorrow afternoon and whenever else you get a chance.”
Jimmy didn’t heed the sarcastic reception with which his final words of instruction were greeted. His eyes were fixed admiringly for the moment on Lolita Murphy who stood near him talking earnestly to one of the “ponies.” To him she never looked prettier than she did in the simple little tailor-made suit and the trim black velvet toque which she had worn on the automobile ride they had taken together that afternoon, an excursion which seemed to have wiped out all traces of the “Cedar Rapids blues,” and which had left her smiling and happy again. She had protested a little against participating in the staging of Jimmy’s Big Idea, but had finally yielded to his persuasive arguments and here she was now, shining and radiant in contrast with her more elaborately attired and highly artificial sisters.