"Oh, you. Of course, special friends are an exception."
And Col. Baker was well pleased to be ranked among the exceptions. Meantime the ringer was heralded.
"It is Dr. Dennis, sir. Shall I show him in here?"
"I suppose so," Mr. Shipley said, gloomily, as one not well pleased; and he added, in under tone, "What on earth can the man want?"
Meantime Col. Baker, with a sudden dexterous move, unceremoniously swept the whole pack of cards out of sight under a paper by his side.
It so happened that Dr. Dennis' call was purely one of business; some item connected with the financial portion of the church, which Dr. Dennis desired to report in a special sermon that was being prepared.
Mr. Shipley, although he was so rarely an attendant at church, and made no secret of his indifference to the whole subject of personal religion, was yet a power in the financial world, and as such recognized and deferred to by the First Church.
Dr. Dennis was in haste, and beyond a specially cordial greeting for Flossy, and an expression of satisfaction at her success with the class the previous Sabbath, he had no more to say, and Mr. Shipley soon had the pleasure of bowing him out, rejoicing in his heart, as he did so, that the clergyman was so prompt a man.
"He would have made a capital business man," he said, returning to his seat. "I never come in contact with him that I don't notice a sort of executive ability about him that makes me think what a success he might have been."
There was no one to ask whether that remark meant that he was at present supposed to be a failure. There was another subject which presently engrossed several of them.