The incipient Committee on Public Morals sat about a long narrow table in bent-wood chairs, in which they were always vainly trying to tilt back. Their table did not suggest debauchery and the demon rum. There were only chilly and naked-looking goblets of ice water.
They lunched, gravely, on consommé, celery, roast lamb, which was rather cold, mashed potatoes, which were arctic, Brussels sprouts, which were overstewed, ice cream, which was warm; with very large cups of coffee, and no smoking afterward.
Elmer began, “I don’t know who is the oldest among us, but certainly no one in this room has had a more distinguished or more valuable term of Christian service than Dr. Edwards, of Pilgrim Congregational, and I know you’ll join me in asking him to say grace before meat.”
The table conversation was less cheerful than the blessing.
They all detested one another. Every one knew of some case in which each of the others had stolen, or was said to have tried to steal, some parishioner, to have corrupted his faith and appropriated his contributions. Dr. Hickenlooper and Dr. Drew had each advertised that he had the largest Sunday School in the city. All of the Protestants wanted to throw ruinous questions about the Immaculate Conception at Father Smeesby, and Father Smeesby, a smiling dark man of forty, had ready, in case they should attack the Catholic Church, the story of the ant who said to the elephant, “Move over, who do you think you’re pushing?” All of them, except Mr. Tillish, wanted to ask Mr. Tillish how he’d ever been fooled by this charlatan, Mary Baker Eddy, and all of them, except the rabbi, wanted to ask Rabbi Amos why the Jews were such numbskulls as not to join the Christian faith.
They were dreadfully cordial. They kept their voices bland, and smiled too often, and never listened to one another. Elmer, aghast, saw that they would flee before making an organization if he did not draw them together. And what was the one thing in which they were all joyously interested? Why, vice! He’d begin the vice rampage now, instead of waiting till the business meeting after lunch.
He pounded on the table, and demanded, “Most of you have been in Zenith longer than myself. I admit ignorance. It is true that I have unearthed many dreadful, dreadful cases of secret sin. But you gentlemen, who know the town so much better—— Am I right? Are Conditions as dreadful as I think, or do I exaggerate?”
All of them lighted up and, suddenly looking on Elmer as a really nice man after all, they began happily to tell of their woeful discoveries. . . . The blood-chilling incident of the father who found in the handbag of his sixteen-year-old daughter improper pictures. The suspicion that at a dinner of war veterans at the Leroy House there had danced a young lady who wore no garments save slippers and a hat.
“I know all about that dinner—I got the details from a man in my church—I’ll tell you about it if you feel you ought to know,” said Dr. Gomer.
They looked as though they decidedly felt that they ought to know. He went into details, very, and at the end Dr. Jessup gulped, “Oh, that Leroy House is absolutely a den of iniquity! It ought to be pulled!”