“Oh, Lord, I mustn’t take any more,” said Elmer, taking it. His hand trembled so that Ad had to hold the glass to his mouth. He was conscious that he must call up Deacon Eversley at once. Two drinks later he felt better, and his hand was steady. The Pequot bunch began to come in, with a view to dinner. He postponed his telephone call to Eversley till after dinner; he kept postponing it; and he found himself, at ten on Easter morning, with a perfectly strange young woman in a perfectly strange flat, and heard Ad Locust, in the next room, singing “How Dry I Am.”
Elmer did a good deal of repenting and groaning before his first drink of the morning, after which he comforted himself, “Golly, I never will get to that church now. Well, I’ll tell the committee I was taken sick. Hey, Ad! How’d we ever get here? Can we get any breakfast in this dump?”
He had two bottles of beer, spoke graciously to the young lady in the kimono and red slippers, and felt himself altogether a fine fellow. With Ad and such of the eleven as were still alive, and a scattering of shrieking young ladies, he drove out to a dance-hall on the lake, Easter Sunday afternoon, and they returned to Monarch for lobster and jocundity.
“But this ends it. Tomorrow morning I’ll get busy and see Eversley and fix things up,” Elmer vowed.
IV
In that era long-distance telephoning was an uncommon event, but Eversley, deacon and lawyer, was a bustler. When the new preacher had not appeared by six on Saturday afternoon, Eversley telephoned to Babylon, waited while Dean Trosper was fetched to the Babylon central, and spoke with considerable irritation about the absence of the ecclesiastical hired hand.
“I’ll send you Brother Hudkins—a very fine preacher, living here now, retired. He’ll take the midnight train,” said Dean Trosper.
To Mr. Hudkins the dean said, “And look around and see if you can find anything of Brother Gantry. I’m worried about him. The poor boy was simply in agony over a most unfortunate private matter . . . apparently.”
Now Mr. Hudkins had for several years conducted a mission on South Clark Street in Chicago, and he knew a good many unholy things. He had seen Elmer Gantry in classes at Mizpah. When he had finished Easter morning services in Monarch, he not only went to the police and to the hospitals but began a round of the hotels, restaurants, and bars. Thus it came to pass that while Elmer was merrily washing lobster down with California claret, stopping now and then to kiss the blonde beside him and (by request) to repeat his toast, that evening, he was being observed from the café door by the Reverend Mr. Hudkins in the enjoyable rôle of avenging angel.