A crunching upon the gravel-walk.  A man and a woman were hurrying up to the parsonage.  The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious and foxy,—­yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment.  The Great Socialists,—­I knew them at once.

“Triumph! triumph!” cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study.  “Deacon Greenlaw has been converted at last!  He will make a holocaust of his cider-mill!”

“He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act of Faith!” exclaimed Mrs. Romulus.  “His cider-mill will be publicly burned this afternoon at five o’clock.  All the delegate Gladiators will march in procession to the ground.  Invitations have been sent to the Order of Frugivorous Brothers, the Infants’ Anti-Tobacco League,”—­

“Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largest proportions,” murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis.

—­“the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Children of the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizens generally,” said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence.

“It is the afternoon of Mrs. Widesworth’s semiannual supper to the singing-school,” hissed Mr. Stellato, maliciously.  “The Deacon’s cider-mill stands on the hill just before Mrs. Widesworth’s house:  the procession may be expected to pass before her windows about four o’clock; it will then make the circuit of the town, and reach the top of the hill a little before five, when the exercises will commence.”

Some petulant reply seemed ready to spring from the lips of the clergyman, but he checked it, and said,—­

“You will have more water than fire:  those clouds drifting up over the river mean rain.”

“Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather!” responded Stellato, with great contempt.  “Sunshine and storm are alike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth!”

“But there is no time to lose,” cried Mrs. Romulus.  “We have come to ask you, as pastor of the first church in this place, to make the prayer before the torch is applied.  You will doubtless decline; but we shall then be able to assure the people that the Gladiators are rejected by an apostate church, which has been cordially invited to become their fellow-worker.”

“You had really better think of it,” urged Stellato, in a seductive whisper.  “The fact is, there is a great excitement, and we are getting on famously.  We are bound to carry the county at the next election, and in a year or two we shall sweep the State.  We have already enrolled some of the best members of your parish, and you see the Deacon is added to the list.  Influential men who join us now will be well provided for when we come into power.  We want funds to carry on the cause.  Think how much you might do with such men as Prowley and Dastick!  Ah, those abominable old sinners, it would be a charity to get something out of them to repair a little of the mischief they have done in the world.”