upon him as a queer fish, and through nearly a dozen years had never quite outgrown their hebdomadal tendency to surprise at seeing him enter their church.  He had never, it is true, professed religion, but they had elected him as a trustee now for a number of terms, all the same—­partly because he was their only lawyer, partly because he, like both his colleagues, held a mortgage on the church edifice and lot.  In person, Mr. Gorringe was a slender man, with a skin of a clear, uniform citron tint, black waving hair, and dark gray eyes, and a thin, high-featured face.  He wore a mustache and pointed chin-tuft; and, though he was of New England parentage and had never been further south than Ocean Grove, he presented a general effect of old Mississippian traditions and tastes startlingly at variance with the standards of Dearborn County Methodism.  Nothing could convince some of the elder sisters that he was not a drinking man.

The three visitors had completed their survey of the room now; and Loren Pierce emitted a dry, harsh little cough, as a signal that business was about to begin.  At this sound, Winch drew up his feet, and Gorringe untied a parcel of account-books and papers that he held on his knee.  Theron felt that his countenance must be exhibiting to the assembled brethren an unfortunate sense of helplessness in their hands.  He tried to look more resolute, and forced his lips into a smile.

“Brother Gorringe allus acts as Seckertary,” said Erastus Winch, beaming broadly upon the minister, as if the mere mention of the fact promoted jollity.  “That’s it, Brother Gorringe,—­take your seat at Brother Ware’s desk.  Mind the Dominie’s pen don’t play tricks on you, an’ start off writin’ out sermons instid of figgers.”  The humorist turned to Theron as the lawyer walked over to the desk at the window.  “I allus have to caution him about that,” he remarked with great joviality.  “An’ do you look out afterwards, Brother Ware, or else you’ll catch that pen o’ yours scribblin’ lawyer’s lingo in place o’ the Word.”

Theron felt bound to exhibit a grin in acknowledgment of this pleasantry.  The lawyer’s change of position had involved some shifting of the others’ chairs, and the young minister found himself directly confronted by Brother Pierce’s hard and colorless old visage.  Its little eyes were watching him, as through a mask, and under their influence the smile of politeness fled from his lips.  The lawyer on his right, the cheese-buyer to the left, seemed to recede into distance as he for the moment returned the gaze of the quarryman.  He waited now for him to speak, as if the others were of no importance.

“We are a plain sort o’ folks up in these parts,” said Brother Pierce, after a slight further pause.  His voice was as dry and rasping as his cough, and its intonations were those of authority.  “We walk here,” he went on, eying the minister with a sour regard, “in a meek an’ humble spirit, in the straight an’ narrow way which leadeth unto life.  We ain’t gone traipsin’ after strange gods, like some people that call themselves Methodists in other places.  We stick by the Discipline an’ the ways of our fathers in Israel.  No new-fangled notions can go down here.  Your wife’d better take them flowers out of her bunnit afore next Sunday.”