“Not a breath!” exclaimed Theron, mournfully.  “Well,” he added upon reflection, “I’m sorry, downright sorry.  The debt-raiser seems to me about the lowest-down thing we produce.  I’ve heard of those Soulsbys; I think I saw him indeed once at Conference, but I believe she is the head of the firm.”

“Yes; she wears the breeches, I understand,” said Gorringe sententiously.

“I had hoped,” the young minister began with a rueful sigh, “in fact, I felt quite confident at the outset that I could pay off this debt, and put the church generally on a new footing, by giving extra attention to my pulpit work.  It is hardly for me to say it, but in other places where I have been, my preaching has been rather—­rather a feature in the town itself I have always been accustomed to attract to our services a good many non-members, and that, as you know, helps tremendously from a money point of view.  But somehow that has failed here.  I doubt if the average congregations are a whit larger now than they were when I came in April.  I know the collections are not.”

“No,” commented the lawyer, slowly; “you’ll never do anything in that line in Octavius.  You might, of course, if you were to stay here and work hard at it for five or six years—­”

“Heaven forbid!” groaned Mr. Ware.

“Quite so,” put in the other.  “The point is that the Methodists here are a little set by themselves.  I don’t know that they like one another specially, but I do know that they are not what you might call popular with people outside.  Now, a new preacher at the Presbyterian church, or even the Baptist—­he might have a chance to create talk, and make a stir.  But Methodist—­no!  People who don’t belong won’t come near the Methodist church here so long as there’s any other place with a roof on it to go to.  Give a dog a bad name, you know.  Well, the Methodists here have got a bad name; and if you could preach like Henry Ward Beecher himself you wouldn’t change it, or get folks to come and hear you.”

“I see what you mean,” Theron responded.  “I’m not particularly surprised myself that Octavius doesn’t love us, or look to us for intellectual stimulation.  I myself leave that pulpit more often than otherwise feeling like a wet rag—­utterly limp and discouraged.  But, if you don’t mind my speaking of it, you don’t belong, and yet you come.”

It was evident that the lawyer did not mind.  He spoke freely in reply.  “Oh, yes, I’ve got into the habit of it.  I began going when I first came here, and—­and so it grew to be natural for me to go.  Then, of course, being the only lawyer you have, a considerable amount of my business is mixed up in one way or another with your membership; you see those are really the things which settle a man in a rut, and keep him there.”

“I suppose your people were Methodists,” said Theron, to fill in the pause, “and that is how you originally started with us.”