“Well you're right.” Evans twisted himself about in his chair, and hung his legs over one of the arms.
“The real reason why I wish you to preach this sermon is because I have just been offering a fee to the head-waiter at our hotel.”
“And you feel degraded with him by his acceptance? For it is a degradation.”
“No, that's the strangest thing about it. I have a monopoly of the degradation, for he didn't take my dollar.”
“Ah, then a sermon won't help you! Why wouldn't he take it?”
“He said he didn't know as he wanted any money he hadn't earned,” said Evans, with a touch of mimicry.
The minister started up from his lounging attitude. “Is his name—Barker?” he asked, with unerring prescience.
“Yes,” said Evans with a little surprise. “Do you know him?”
“Yes,” returned the minister, falling back in his chair helplessly, not luxuriously. “So well that I knew it was he almost as soon as you came into the room to-night.”
“What harm have you been doing him?” demanded the editor, in parody of the minister's acuteness in guessing the guilty operation of his own mind.