“Do I get you right?” he queried. “Does he write those hymns for other folks to sign?”
“He does.”
“What does he do that for?”
“Money. He gets as high as five dollars per stanza.”
“Some salesman!” My hard-faced companion regarded the lank figure overhanging the fence with new respect. “Looks to me like the original Gloom,” he observed. “What’s his grouch?”
“Conscience.”
“He must have a bum one!”
“He has a busy one. He expends a great amount of time and sorrow repenting of our sins.”
“Whose sins?” asked the other, opening wider his dull and weary eyes.
“Ours. His neighbors. Everybody in Our Square.”