Mr. Peck looked up from the paper and across the intervening pews at Mr. Gerrish. “Do I understand that you move the adoption of this resolution?”
“Why, certainly, sir,” said Mr. Gerrish, with an accent of supercilious surprise.
“You did not say so,” said the minister gently. “Does any one second Brother Gerrish's motion?”
A murmur of amusement followed Mr. Peck's reminder to Mr. Gerrish, and an ironical voice called out—
“Mr. Moderator!”
“Mr. Putney.”
“I think it important that the sense of the meeting should be taken on the question the resolution raises. I therefore second the motion for its adoption.”
Putney sat down, and the murmur now broadened into something like a general laugh, hushed as with a sudden sense of the impropriety.
Mr. Gerrish had gradually sunk into his seat, but now he rose again, and when the minister formally announced the motion before the meeting, he called, sharply, “Mr. Moderator!”
“Brother Gerrish,” responded the minister, in recognition.