"You were one of the Elders?" inquired John, in an even voice that might have been construed to mean respect for the eldership.
"I am one of 'em," corrected the driver of nails. "I preached the old Jerusalem Gospel myself for twenty years," he affirmed proudly, "until my health failed, and I went into undertaking."
"You appear to have got your health back," observed John dryly, noting marks of the hammer upon the plank where the nail heads had been beaten almost out of sight by his slashing blows.
"Yep," admitted that gentleman, just as dryly.
Looking at Elder Burbeck's large head, with its iron-gray hair, at the silk hat, which stuck perilously, but persistently, to the back of it; noticing the folds of oily flesh on his bullock neck, the working of his broad, fat shoulders, and the sweat standing out on his heavy jowls, as if protesting mutely this unusual activity discharged with such vehemence, John made up his mind that he could never like Elder Burbeck. In his heart he took the part of the disturber.
"You know what this reminds me of, somehow?" he asked, with just a minor note of accusation in his tone.
"Not being a mind reader, I don't," replied Elder Burbeck, turning on John a look which showed as plainly as his speech that in the same interval of time when John was deciding he didn't like Burbeck, Burbeck was deciding he didn't like John. "What does it?" and the Elder-undertaker stared fiercely at the book agent.
"Nailing Jesus to the Cross," replied John, shooting a glance at Burbeck that was hard and beamlike.
"Hey!" exclaimed Burbeck, his red face reddening more.
"But," explained the Secretary, interjecting himself anxiously, as a man not too proud of his duty that day, "it is in the interests of peace. We expect to give time a chance to heal the wounds. In six months the disturbing element will have gone away or given up, and then we can open the doors to peace and the old faith."