“Rats! Chances are nobody there tonight has ever read Ingersoll. Agin him. Besides I’ll kind of change it around.”
V
When President Quarles called for him, Elmer’s exhortation was outlined, and he had changed to his Sunday-best blue serge double-breasted suit and sleeked his hair.
As they departed, Jim called Elmer back from the hall to whisper, “Say, Hell-cat, you won’t forget to give credit to Ingersoll, and to me for tipping you off, will you?”
“You go to hell!” said Elmer.
VI
There was a sizable and extremely curious gathering at the Y. M. C. A. All day the campus had debated, “Did Hell-cat really sure-enough get saved? Is he going to cut out his hell-raising?”
Every man he knew was present, their gaping mouths dripping question-marks, grinning or doubtful. Their leers confused him, and he was angry at being introduced by Eddie Fislinger, president of the Y. M. C. A.
He started coldly, stammering. But Ingersoll had provided the beginning of his discourse, and he warmed to the splendor of his own voice. He saw the audience in the curving Y. M. C. A. auditorium as a radiant cloud, and he began to boom confidently, he began to add to his outline impressive ideas which were altogether his own—except, perhaps, as he had heard them thirty or forty times in sermons.
It sounded very well, considering. Certainly it compared well with the average mystical rhapsody of the pulpit.