“I know what you mean!” cried Miss Vane delightedly. “I believe Lemuel is a little more supple, a little less like a granite boulder in one of his meadows. But I can't say that he's glib yet. He isn't apparently going to say more than he thinks.”
“I hope he thinks more than he says,” sighed the minister. “My interviews with Lemuel have left me not only exhausted but bruised, as if I had been hurling myself against a dead wall. Yes, I manage him better from the pulpit, and I certainly oughtn't to complain. I don't expect him to make any response, and I perceive that I am not quite so sore as after meeting him in private life.”
That evening Lemuel was helping to throng the platform of an overcrowded horse-car. It was Saturday night, and he was going to the provision man up toward the South End, whom Miss Vane was dealing with for the time being, in an economical recoil from her expensive Back Bay provision man, to order a forgotten essential of the Sunday's supplies. He had already been at the grocer's, and was carrying home three or four packages to save the cart from going a third time that day to Bolingbroke Street, and he stepped down into the road when two girls came squeezing their way out of the car.
“Well, I'm glad,” said one of them in a voice Lemuel knew at once, “'t there's one man's got the politeness to make a little grain o' room for you. Thank you, sir!” she added, with more scorn for the others than gratitude for Lemuel. “You're a gentleman, anyway.”
The hardened offenders on the platform laughed, but Lemuel said simply, “You're quite welcome.”
“Why, land's sakes!” shouted the girl. “Well, if 'tain't you! S'tira!” she exclaimed to her companion in utter admiration. Then she added to Lemuel, “Why, I didn't s'pose but what you'd a' be'n back home long ago. Well, I am glad. Be'n in Boston ever since? Well, I want to know!”
The conductor had halted his car for the girls to get off, but, as he remarked with a vicious jerk at his bell-strap, he could not keep his car standing there while a woman was asking about the folks, and the horses started up and left Lemuel behind. “Well, there!” said 'Manda Grier. “'F I hain't made you lose your car! I never see folks like some them conductors.”
“Oh, I guess I can walk the rest of the way,” said Lemuel, his face bright with a pleasure visible in the light of the lamp that brought out Statira Dudley's smiles and the forward thrust of 'Manda Grier's whopper-jaw as they turned toward the pavement together.
“Well, I guess 'f I've spoke about you once, I have a hundred times, in the last six weeks. I always told S'tira you'd be'n sure to turn up b'fore this 'f you'd be'n in Boston all the time; 'n' 't I guessed you'd got a disgust for the place, 'n' 't you wouldn't want to see it again for one while.”