“Aw, say now, Jim, lissen!”
“I’ve listened enough. I’ve got nothing more to say. And now you listen to me!” said Jim, and he spoke with tongues for three minutes straight.
Most of the night they struggled for the freedom of Elmer’s soul, with Jim not quite losing yet never winning. As Jim’s face had hovered at the gospel meeting between him and the evangelist, blotting out the vision of the cross, so now the faces of his mother and Judson hung sorrowful and misty before him, a veil across Jim’s pleading.
Elmer slept four hours and went out, staggering with weariness, to bring cinnamon buns, a wienie sandwich, and a tin pail of coffee for Jim’s breakfast. They were laboring windily into new arguments, Jim a little more stubborn, Elmer ever more irritable, when no less a dignitary than President the Rev. Dr. Willoughby Quarles, chin whisker, glacial shirt, bulbous waistcoat and all, plunged in under the fat soft wing of the landlady.
The president shook hands a number of times with everybody, he eyebrowed the landlady out of the room, and boomed in his throaty pulpit voice, with belly-rumblings and long-drawn R’s and L’s, a voice very deep and owlish, most holy and fitting to the temple which he created merely by his presence, rebuking to flippancy and chuckles and the puerile cynicisms of the Jim Leffertses—a noise somewhere between the evening bells and the morning jackass:
“Oh, Brother Elmer, that was a brave thing you did! I have never seen a braver! For a great strong man of your gladiatorial powers to not be afraid to humble himself! And your example will do a great deal of good, a grrrrrreat deal of good! And we must catch and hold it. You are to speak at the Y. M. C. A. tonight—special meeting to reënforce the results of our wonderful Prayer Week.”
“Oh, gee, President, I can’t!” Elmer groaned.
“Oh, yes, Brother, you must. You must! It’s already announced. If you’ll go out within the next hour, you’ll be gratified to see posters announcing it all over town!”
“But I can’t make a speech!”
“The Lord will give the words if you give the good will! I myself shall call for you at a quarter to seven. God bless you!”