Just then a murmur swept through the crowd; attendants at the entrance shouted “easy, please, everyone,” and Jimmy and his group of more or less merry chorus maidens were caught in a whirling current of humanity which shot them through the door, rumpled and almost panic-stricken, and landed them at the head of a long aisle bisecting the huge empty auditorium which yawned before them, ablaze with lights and festooned with flags. The press agent was the first to collect his thoughts.
“Everybody make a dive for the front seats,” he shouted. “Follow me.”
The “Keep Moving” girls couldn’t do anything else. The surging crowd pressed them forward and they took the aisle on the run to avoid being knocked down. They all managed to get seats in the front rows where hand-mirrors, powder puffs and lip sticks soon came into play to the horror and stupefaction of many in the great choir of a thousand which occupied places on the platform directly in front of them.
Jimmy, having successfully performed his function as counselor and cicerone, was careful to seat himself a considerable distance away on the other side of the aisle where he effaced himself as much as possible by betraying an intense interest in a hymn book which was proffered him by an usher. He knew that it wouldn’t do for him to be seen in close proximity to his charges by any of the keen-eyed reporters who were even now gathering at the press table underneath the reading desk in the center of the platform.
One of these reporters, a curly-headed youngster with laughing eyes, turned his chair around to get a comprehensive view of the thousands of persons who were jostling each other in the center and side aisles as the vast building rapidly filled up. He caught a glimpse of the numerous facial toilettes in progress in the front rows, ran an appraising eye over the entire group; smothered an unchurchly chuckle and nudged his nearest companion. Presently the entire press table was abuzz with whispered comment as the identity of the visitors was established.
While the crowd was still noisily filing into the rear rows “Billy” Williams’ principal assistant put in an appearance on the platform and was loudly applauded by scattered groups who were promptly quieted by the ushers who moved quickly up and down the aisles, ready at a moment’s notice, to insist upon the preservation of the dignities. The assistant was a jovial looking man with an infectious smile. He held a cornet in one hand and he raised the other to command the attention of the great throng. A hush fell over the assemblage and presently the strains of “Onward, Christian Soldiers” cut through the silence with penetrating incisiveness. The effect was electric. When the cornetist had finished he turned swiftly and at precisely the same instant the thousand singers on the platform rose to their feet and burst into song. Another signal and the audience stood up. In response to a pleading gesture from the man with the smile a voice was raised here and there in unison with the chorus. He pleaded pantomimically once more and, as if by the exercise of sheer hypnotic control, he presently cajoled the great crowd into singing.
From that moment he held the audience in the hollow of his hand and played with it. Now he would have everyone on one side of the auditorium singing. Then he would be challenging those on the other side to outdo their competitors. Now it was the women who would be asked to sing alone. Next it would be the men. The choir would be asked to sing a verse. Then the entire audience would be called upon to follow them. By the time he had finished with those preliminaries he had the throats of everyone present in such thorough working order and the feeling of self-consciousness had been so dissipated that when he eventually demanded “a combined effort that will shake the gates of glory” the result was inspiring to the last degree.
As the final words of the final chorus were shaken out by ten thousand throats in one last concentrated burst of glad song the Rev. “Billy” Williams stepped through a door on the side of the platform and quickly crossed to the reading desk. No playwright, craftily scheming for a “good entrance” for a stage star, could ever have contrived a situation or a moment more pregnant with dramatic effectiveness or more tense with emotion. The last word of the hymn had died down and the air seemed to still throb with the dying echoes as the evangelist reached to the center of the platform and held up his hand in a gesture which was an invitation to prayer. Ten thousand heads were bowed in humble submission to his implied command, and in a voice which breathed sincerity and fine feeling he offered up a simple supplication beseeching the blessing of Divine Providence upon all assembled and upon himself, an unworthy instrument of a higher Power.
He was a stockily built man with a rugged and rather rough-hewn face. Blue eyes were set in it below bushy brows that gave him, in moods of intense earnestness, a somewhat ferocious aspect. They were eyes that now glowed with tender warmth, that grew hard or relentlessly cold next moment or that would ever and anon gleam and glint with merriment. They were the most expressive of his features. They mirrored his moods with uncanny accuracy. The movements of his squat and chunky frame were quick and darting when he was in action and even when he was in repose—which was seldom—he seemed to be literally seething with energy beneath the surface. When he permitted himself the luxury of letting down the inhibitive barriers which ordinarily held this energy in check he became a dynamic force that was almost irresistible in its onslaught on the emotions.
The prayer over, another hymn was sung under the magnetic leadership of the assistant, while “Billy” Williams pulled his chair over the edge of the platform and fraternized with the reporters as was his custom. Jimmy Martin, who was watching the proceedings circumspectly over the shoulder of a prim looking maiden lady who stood next him and whose hymn book he was sharing in a pretense of devotional interest, noticed that the curly headed newsgatherer was whispering to the evangelist and directing the latter’s attention to his charges in the front rows.