“’Well, so it is, technically.  And the devil is after the sheriff, but I think the Lord is touching them both up a little to get even with me.  Anyhow, between the Lord and the devil, with the sheriff thrown in, this world is no place for a minister’s son.  And the rule works on daughters, too.

“’You know, Connie, I have received the world with open hands, a loving heart, a receptive soul.  And I got gloriously filled up, too, let me tell you.  Connie, shun the little gay-backed cards that bear diamonds and hearts and spades.  Connie, flee from the ice-cold bottles that bubble to meet your lips.  Connie, turn a cold shoulder to the gilded youths who sing when the night is old.’

“‘For goodness’ sake, Kirke, tell me the story before the sheriff gets you.’

“‘Well, it is a story of bottles on ice.’

“‘Mount Mark is dry.’

“’Yes, like other towns, Mount Mark is dry for those who want it dry, but it is wet enough to drown any misguided soul who loves the damp.  I loved it,—­but, with the raven, nevermore.  Connie, there is one thing even more fatal to a minister’s son than bottles of beer.  That thing is politics.  If I had taken my beer straight I might have escaped.  But I tried to dilute it with politics, and behold the result.  My father walking the floor in anguish, my mother in tears, my future blasted, my hopes shattered.’

“‘Kirke, tell me the story.’

“’Matters is running for reelection.  I do not approve of Matters.  He is a booze fighter and a card shark and a lot of other unscriptural things.  As a Methodist and a minister’s son I felt called to battle his return to office.  So I went out electioneering for my friend and ally, Joe Smithson.  You know, Connie, that in spite of my wandering ways, I have friends in the county and I am a born talker.  I took my faithful steed and I spent many hours, which should have been devoted to selling furniture, decrying the vices of Matters, extolling the virtues of Smithson.  Matters got his eye on me.

“’He had the other eye on that office.  He saw he must make a strong bid for county favor.  The easiest way to do that in Mount Mark is to get after a boot-legger.  There was Snippy Brown, a poor old harmless nigger, trying to earn an honest living by selling a surreptitious bottle from a hole in the ground to a thirsting neighbor in the dead of night.  Plainly Snippy Brown was fairly crying to be raided.  Matters raided him.  And he got a couple of hundred of bottles on ice.’

“‘Served him right,’ I said, in a Sabbatical voice.