Oliver Banks looked at him in deep contempt, and shook his head. "These birds make things hard for us," he murmured. "He looks like a Minister of the Crown now, doesn't he? Lord! wouldn't he make a sight for the women! I'd like to hear their description of him just as he sits now."
The minister sat with his pudgy hands spread out on the arms of his chair. His head rolled uncertainly, like a wilting sunflower on a broken stalk. His under lip was too full to fit his face. If he had been a teething infant one would have been justified in saying he was drooling.
The organizer called a waiter and instructed him to phone to the gentleman's house and speak to his chauffeur.
"Tell him to take the old man home," he said briefly, "he seems to be—overtaken."
"Very good, sir," said the waiter, without a flicker of an eyelash.
Then the organizer went to a telephone booth and called George Steadman, of Millford, requesting him to come at once to the city on important business.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WOMAN OF PURPLE SPRINGS
None of us has lived long without discovering that everything he has he pays for; that every gain has a corresponding loss; that a development even of one of our own faculties, is at the expense of the others. The wild wheat is small and dwarfed in size in its native state, but very hardy. Under persistent cultivation it grows bigger and more productive, but, unfortunately, susceptible to the frost. The wild rabbit when domesticated grows bigger and more beautiful, but loses his speed and cleverness. So it is all through life—it all comes in the bill—we cannot escape the day of reckoning.
If Pearl Watson had not had a taste for political speeches and debates; if she had read the crochet patterns in the paper instead of the editorials, and had spent her leisure moments making butterfly medallions for her camisoles, or in some other ladylike pursuit, instead of leaning over the well-worn railing around the gallery of the Legislative Assembly, in between classes at the Normal, she would have missed much; but she would have gained something too.