“You have changed your argument,” Marion said, with a flash of humor in her eyes.  “You were talking about the amount of money that the Association were to earn to-morrow, not the amount which you were to lose by not being allowed to come in.  However, I am willing to talk from that standpoint.  If you hold the season ticket of the Association, and are stopping outside, you will be admitted, of course.  It is held to be as reasonable a way to go to church as though you harnessed your horses at home and drove, on the Sabbath, to your regular place of worship.  But you buy no ticket for the Sabbath, and none is received from you; and if you choose not to go, the Association neither makes nor loses by the operation, and, so far as money is concerned, is entirely indifferent which you decide to do.  What fault can possibly be found with such an arrangement?”

“Well,” said the gentleman, with a quiet positiveness of tone, “I haven’t a season ticket, and I don’t mean to buy one, and I mean to go down there to meeting to-morrow, and I expect to get in.”

“I dare say,” Marion answered, with glowing cheeks.  “The grounds are extensive, you know, and they are not walled in.  I haven’t the least doubt but that hundreds can creep through the brush, and so have the gospel free.  There is something about ’he that climbeth up some other way being a thief and a robber;’ but, of course, the writer could not have had Chautauqua in mind; and even if it applies, it would be only stealing from an Association, which is not stealing at all, you know.”

“You are hard on me,” the gentleman said, flushing in his turn, and the listeners, of whom there were many, laughed and seemed to enjoy the flashing of words.  “I have no intention of creeping or climbing in.  I shall present the same sort of ticket which took me in to-day, and if it doesn’t pass me I will send you a dispatch to let you know, if you will give me your address.”

“And if you do get in, and will let me know, I will report at once to the proper authorities that the gate-keepers have been unfaithful to their trust,” said Marion, triumphantly.

“But, my dear madam, what justice is there in that?  I have paid my money, and what business is it to them when I present my ticket?  That is keeping me out of my just dues.”

“Oh, not a bit of it; that is, if you can read, and have, as you admit, read their printed statement that you are not invited to the ground on Sunday.  Your fifty-cent ticket will admit you on Monday.  And you surely will not argue that the Association has not a right to limit the number of guests that it will entertain over the Sabbath?”

“Yes, I argue that it is their business to let me in whenever I present their ticket.”

Marion laughed outright.

“That is marvelous!” she said.  “It is wicked for them to receive payment for your coming in on the Sabbath, and it is wicked for them not to let you in on your ticket.  Really, I don’t see what the Association are to do.  They are committing sin either way it is put.  I see no way out of it but to have refused to sell you any tickets at all.  Would that have made it right?”