At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora.  The blatant defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him.  This canting hypocrite, this wolf in priest’s clothing must be brought to book.  But how?  Mrs. Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there were no letters, no photographs.  There was no use commencing an action for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it.  And once the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot.  Some way must be devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and—­equally imperative —­whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not for nothing had she come to them—­that is, to him—­for help.

The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather hysterical.  Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and doing something behind his wife’s back.  He told himself that his Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private decoration.  He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him.  And in addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his philandering.  He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the florist’s for flowers that he had sent her.  In one respect only did he exhibit even the most elementary caution—­he wrote and signed all his letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the safe.

“So there we are!” he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop’s visit.  “We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to surrender.  In a word we have got to scare him—­Georgie.”

And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny Club justified its attempted existence.  For the indefatigable Sorg made an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new application were now made to another judge—­whom he knew—­it would be more favorably received.  Tutt went to the doorway and stood there barring the entrance and expostulating with him.

“All right!” shouted Sorg.  “All right!  I hear you!  But don’t tell me that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be denied the right to call themselves what they please!”

“He don’t understand!” explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with wide, dreamy eyes.  “He don’t appreciate the difference between doing a thing as an individual and as a group.”