I
elmer had, even in Zenith, to meet plenty of solemn and whiskery persons whose only pleasure aside from not doing agreeable things was keeping others from doing them. But the general bleakness of his sect was changing, and he found in Wellspring Church a Young Married Set who were nearly as cheerful as though they did not belong to a church.
This Young Married Set, though it was in good odor, though the wives taught Sunday School and the husbands elegantly passed collection plates, swallowed the Discipline with such friendly ease as a Catholic priest uses toward the latest bleeding Madonna. They lived, largely, in the new apartment-houses which were creeping into Old Town. They were not rich, but they had Fords and phonographs and gin. They danced, and they were willing to dance even in the presence of the Pastor.
They smelled in Elmer one of them, and though Cleo’s presence stiffened them into uncomfortable propriety, when he dropped in on them alone they shouted, “Come on, Reverend, I bet you can shake a hoof as good as anybody! The wife says she’s gotta dance with you! Gotta get acquainted with these Sins of the World if you’re going to make snappy sermons!”
He agreed, and he did dance, with a pretty appearance of being shocked. He was light-footed still, for all his weight, and there was electricity in his grasp as his hands curled about his partner’s waist.
“Oh, my, Reverend, if you hadn’t been a preacher you’d have been some dancing-man!” the women fluttered, and for all his caution he could not keep from looking into their fascinated eyes, noting the flutter of their bosoms, and murmuring, “Better remember I’m human, honey! If I did cut loose—Zowie!”
And they admired him for it.
Once, when rather hungrily he sniffed at the odors of alcohol and tobacco, the host giggled, “Say, I hope you don’t smell anything on my breath, Reverend—be fierce if you thought a good Methodist like me could ever throw in a shot of liquor!”
“It’s not my business to smell anything except on Sundays,” said Elmer amiably, and, “Come on now, Sister Gilson, let’s try and fox-trot again. My gracious, you talk about me smelling for liquor! Think of what would happen if Brother Apfelmus knew his dear Pastor was slipping in a little dance! Mustn’t tell on me, folks!”
“You bet we won’t!” they said, and not even the elderly pietists on whom he called most often became louder adherents of the Reverend Elmer Gantry, better advertisers of his sermons, than these blades of the Young Married Set.