"Tall gennelman, sir? There aint bin no one come along this way, sir, nobody couldn't pass my little hutch wivout me a seein' on 'em. I ain't been out no wheres, an' I knows no one aint come by—least ways, not this way, not past my place."
"If any tall gentleman does come up, Charley, show him in to me, at once please."
Ralph had had time, during Charley's extended answer, to recover himself from the amaze that the boy's first sentence has produced in him.
"That's all, Charley!" he added, turning to his desk.
The boy gave him a curious, puzzled look, lingered for the fraction of a second, then slowly turned and left the office.
When the door had closed behind him, Ralph, who had felt all that had passed in that moment of the boy's hesitancy, though he had purposely refrained from looking up, lifted his head and glanced around him.
"If I did not know better," he murmured, "I should suppose that the whole incident was but a dream, or hallucination."
A perplexed look filled his face, as he continued:
"What does it all mean?"
Again, in a flash, the memory of that Judas sermon swept back over him, and the startling statement recurred to him "Somewhere, even as I have preached of him, and as you have listened, there is, I believe, a young man of noble stature, exceedingly attractive, wealthy, fascinating, bewitching in fact, since 'all the world will wonder after him'—yes, somewhere in the world, perhaps in this very city where we are now gathered, is the young man who, presently, when our Lord has come, when the Church, and the Holy Spirit are gone, will manifest himself as the Anti-christ."