One morning last summer, after the tenor had been playing tricks all spring on the rest of the choir, the soprano brought a chunk of shoemaker’s wax to church.  The tenor was arrayed like Solomon in all his glory, with white pants, and a Seymour coat.  The tenor got up to see who the girl was that came in with the old lady, and while he was up the soprano put the shoemaker’s wax on the chair, and the tenor sat down on it.  They all saw it, and they waited for the result.  It was an awful long prayer, and the church was hot, the tenor was no iceberg himself, and shoemaker’s wax melts at ninety eight degrees Fahrenheit.

[Illustration:  THE TENOR ARRAYED IN ALL HIS GLORY.]

The minister finally got to the amen, and read a hymn, the choir then coughed and all rose up.  The chair that the tenor sat in stuck to him like a brother, and came right along and nearly broke his suspenders.

It was the tenor to bat, and as the great organ struck up he pushed the chair, looked around to see if he had saved his pants, and began to sing, and the rest of the choir came near bursting.  The tenor was called out on three strikes by the umpire, and the alto had to sail in, and while she was singing the tenor began to feel of first base to see what was the matter.  When he got his hand on the shoemaker’s warm wax his heart smote him, and he looked daggers at the soprano, but she put on a pious look and got her mouth ready to sing “Hold the Fort.”

Well, the tenor sat down on a white handkerchief before he went home, and he got home without anybody seeing him, and he has been, as the old saying is, “laying” for the soprano ever since to get even.

It is customary in all first-class choirs for the male singers to furnish candy for the lady singers, and the other day the tenor went to a candy factory and had a peppermint lozenger made with about half a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper in the centre of it.  On Christmas he took his lozenger to church and concluded to get even with the soprano if he died for it.

Candy had been passed around, and just before the hymn was given out in which the soprano was to sing a solo, “Nearer My God to Thee,” the wicked wretch gave her the loaded lozenger.  She put it in her mouth and nibbed off the edges, and was rolling it as a sweet morsel under her tongue, when the organ struck up and they all arose.  While the choir was skirmishing on the first part of the verse and getting scored up for the solo, she chewed what was left of the candy and swallowed it.

Well, if a democratic torch-light procession had marched unbidden down her throat she couldn’t have been any more astonished.  She leaned over to pick up her handkerchief and spit the candy out, but there was enough pepper left around the selvage of her mouth to have pickled a peck of chow-chow.  It was her turn to sing, and as she rose and took the book, her eyes filled with tears, her voice trembled, her face was as red as a spanked lobster, and the way she sung that old hymn was a caution.  With a sweet tremulo she sung, “A Charge to Keep I Have,” and the congregation was almost melted to tears.