“Then,” said Paddock, not understanding, “I have merely stimulated your ambition as a sinner.”
“That’s exactly it. There’s something rather contemptible about drunkenness. A man of education ought to do worse or be very, very good. Well, how goes the work?”
“First rate. That’s what I came in to see you about. I want you, as a leading citizen, to come and look at my plant.”
“Certainly, I’ll do that with pleasure, sometime, provided your real design isn’t to show me off as an awful example. Mind you, I don’t stand for that. At any rate, I was brought up in the strict letter of the Presbyterian faith, and if I have any value as an example of what shouldn’t be, the Presbyterians have first call. It would be low down in me to pose for you Episcopalians, who are a rival body.”
“I don’t want you to pose as anything; just sit on the back seat and watch the events of an evening. The hat isn’t passed—no sermon—maybe a song or two, but you don’t have to sing. Your chauffeur will know how to take you out; he quite eclipses me. His batting averages make him a marked man; his record of strike-outs his last season on the diamond lifted him quite out of the back-lot class.”
“Am I to understand that Joe Denny has fallen under your spell and frequents the parish house? Well, I thought he was sneaking the machine out at night pretty often, but I didn’t give him credit for anything so noble. I thought it was somebody’s housemaid.”
“He says he can pitch with his left hand just as well as with his right, but he’s passed up the cheering diamond out of devotion to you. He talks about you with tears in his eyes.”
“He takes quite the paternal attitude toward me—looks after me as though I were four years old. The paternal attitude,”—Wayne repeated musingly—“odd phrase that, Paddock. When is it you want me to come to your joss-house?”
“Why not to-night? The various sections are going to get together for the first time, and it will be interesting to see how they mix. Jim Balinski of Altoona will do a sparring stunt with Mike the motorman; songs and recitations will be provided and the girls’ cooking class will attend to the refreshments. I dare you to do better.”
“I’m embarrassed,” laughed Wayne, lacing his fingers behind his head and sprawling out in his chair. “I’m due to sit in a poker game to-night with a few hardened veterans; but your programme appeals to me as more wholesome. I’ll come as long as it’s you, but with the distinct understanding that you don’t try to convert me. I’ll do it once for an old friend; our friendship will suffer if it ever happens again. But,” and he drew down his hands and squared himself in his chair, “but how about all these people you are working for down there? You are going to feed them on cakes and ale and make them dissatisfied, so that they will march into the East End some pleasant evening and tear the citizens from their homes and decorate the trolley poles with them. Your mission in life is pretty, but after all, Jimmy Paddock, can you stick a lever under the lower stratum of society and lift it?”