And then so mortified was I that I would have sunk through the floor, could I have found a vacant nail-hole. As that was out of the question, I would fain have sneaked away without speaking to a human being; but, as bad luck would have it, I had promised to go home to dinner with the Hon. William Richardson, one of the most cultured members of the congregation.
We walked some distance before either spoke a word. Finally, I broke silence—I felt like breaking everything in sight—and I said, “Richardson, was not that the very worst you ever heard?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Mean?” I replied, catching savagely at the word. “‘Mean’ is no name for it. You must have noticed how under the third head of my discourse I lost my head, and ripped and raved and tore around like a lunatic. What did the people think of it?”
“Think of it? Think of it?” he repeated with sincere surprize. “Why, they thought it was the best part of the whole sermon.”
And then I said to myself, and I said to him, “What is the use of talking sense to the people when they like the other so much better?” Possibly this may serve to account for the fact that these same people subsequently called me to become their pastor.—P. S. Henson, Christian Endeavor World.
(1359)
Headstrong—See [Wilfulness].
HEAD-WORK
“He puzzled me at first,” said a physician who had engaged a young college student to take some care of his office. “He put actual head-work into his sweeping and dusting, and he showed remarkable carefulness and dexterity in handling articles, never disarranging or misplacing them. I found that he is studying music as well as Latin, and aims to be a pianist one of these days. Do you see, he simply applied the skill he had attained in a finer art to the rougher work he did for me? It speaks well for his future that he did it.”