His Grudge
BY TOM P. MORGAN
“The Ladies’ Aid Society of the church have undertaken the task of collecting half a mile of pennies,” said the Old Codger’s niece, “for the purpose of sending our pastor on a vacation trip.”
“Humph!” answered the veteran, with all the suavity of a hyena.
“A row of cents half a mile long,” persisted the lady, “will amount, so Sister Eunice Tubman has figured out, to $420.00, and—”
“I don’t care what they amount to!” doggedly declared the venerable curmudgeon. “While I’ve got any sense nobody will get any cents out o’ me for any such purpose! I don’t care a contaminated drat whether ‘our pastor’ stays at home or goes to the Whangdoodle Islands—whatever he does won’t be at my expense, lemme just rise to remark!”
“But, Uncle, you know the laborer is worthy of his hire, and—”
“Yuss! And the less they labor the higher they want their hire to be! Labor!—huh! If more preachers would—aw, well, I won’t give an inch of that ’ere half mile of cents, and that settles it!”
“Why, Uncle, how can you talk so? You are generally ready to give to good causes, and—”
“Ah-yah! But his name is Bertram!”
“To be sure, it is! And he is in every way such a worthy young man, and so intellectual, too! What possible grudge can you have against him?”