I confess it, the effect was magical—­anyone who was present would tell you that.  Tom’s pow simmered—­it seethed—­it foamed yeastily, and slavered like a mad dog!  It steamed and hissed, with angry spurts and flashes!  In a second it had grown bigger than a small snowbank, and whiter.  It surged, and boiled, and walloped, and overflowed, and sputtered—­sent off feathery flakes like down from a shot swan!  The froth poured creaming over his face, and got into his eyes.  It was the most sinful shampooing of the season!

I cannot relate the commotion this produced, nor would I if I could.  As to Tom, he sprang to his feet and staggered out of the house, groping his way between the pews, sputtering strangled profanity and gasping like a stranded fish.  The other candidates for baptism rose also, shaking their pates as if to say, “No you don’t, my hearty,” and left the house in a body.  Amidst unbroken silence the minister reascended the pulpit with the empty bowl in his hand, and was first to speak: 

“Brethren and sisters,” said he with calm, deliberate evenness of tone, “I have held forth in this tabernacle for many more years than I have got fingers and toes, and during that time I have known not guile, nor anger, nor any uncharitableness.  As to Henry Barber, who put up this job on me, I judge him not lest I be judged.  Let him take that and sin no more!”—­and he flung the earthern bowl with so true an aim that it was shattered against my skull.  The rebuke was not undeserved, I confess, and I trust I have profited by it.

THE RACE AT LEFT BOWER

“It’s all very well fer you Britishers to go assin’ about the country tryin’ to strike the trail o’ the mines you’ve salted down yer loose carpital in,” said Colonel Jackhigh, setting his empty glass on the counter and wiping his lips with his coat sleeve; “but w’en it comes to hoss racin’, w’y I’ve got a cayuse ken lay over all the thurrerbreds yer little mantel-ornyment of a island ever panned out—­bet yer britches I have!  Talk about yer Durby winners—­w’y this pisen little beast o’ mine’ll take the bit in her teeth and show ’em the way to the horizon like she was takin’ her mornin’ stroll and they was tryin’ to keep an eye on her to see she didn’t do herself an injury—­that’s w’at she would!  And she haint never run a race with anything spryer’n an Injun in all her life; she’s a green amatoor, she is!”

“Oh, very well,” said the Englishman with a quiet smile; “it is easy enough to settle the matter.  My animal is in tolerably good condition, and if yours is in town we can have the race to-morrow for any stake you like, up to a hundred dollars.

“That’s jest the figger,” said the colonel; “dot it down, barkeep.  But it’s like slarterin’ the innocents,” he added, half-remorsefully, as he turned to leave; “it’s bettin’ on a dead sure thing—­that’s what it is!  If my cayuse knew wa’t I was about she’d go and break a laig to make the race a fair one.”