By force of habit, undoubtedly, Mr. Parr glanced at Nelson Langmaid as he sat down.  Innumerable had been the meetings of financial boards at which Mr. Parr had glanced at Langmaid, who had never failed to respond.  He was that sine qua non of modern affairs, a corporation lawyer,—­although he resembled a big and genial professor of Scandinavian extraction.  He wore round, tortoise-shell spectacles, he had a high, dome-like forehead, and an ample light brown beard which he stroked from time to time.  It is probable that he did not believe in the immortality of the soul.

His eyes twinkled as he rose.

“I don’t pretend to be versed in theology, gentlemen, as you know,” he said, and the entire vestry, even Mr. Parr, smiled.  For vestries, in spite of black coats and the gravity of demeanour which first citizens are apt to possess, are human after all.  “Mr. Parr has stated, I believe; the requirements, and I agree with him that it is not an easy order to fill.  You want a parson who will stick to his last, who will not try experiments, who is not too high or too low or too broad or too narrow, who has intellect without too much initiative, who can deliver a good sermon to those who can appreciate one, and yet will not get the church uncomfortably full of strangers and run you out of your pews.  In short, you want a level-headed clergyman about thirty-five years old who will mind his own business”

The smiles on the faces of the vestry deepened.  The ability to put a matter thus humorously was a part of Nelson Langmaid’s power with men and juries.

“I venture to add another qualification,” he continued, “and that is virility.  We don’t want a bandbox rector.  Well, I happen to have in mind a young man who errs somewhat on the other side, and who looks a little like a cliff profile I once saw on Lake George of George Washington or an Indian chief, who stands about six feet two.  He’s a bachelor—­if that’s a drawback.  But I am not at all sure he can be induced to leave his present parish, where he has been for ten years.”

“I am,” announced Wallis Plimpton, with his hands in his pockets, “provided the right man tackles him.”

III

Nelson Langmaid’s most notable achievement, before he accomplished the greater one of getting a new rector for St. John’s, had been to construct the “water-tight box” whereby the Consolidated Tractions Company had become a law-proof possibility.  But his was an esoteric reputation, —­the greater fame had been Eldon Parr’s.  Men’s minds had been dazzled by the breadth of the conception of scooping all the street-car lines of the city, long and short, into one big basket, as it were; and when the stock had been listed in New York, butcher and baker, clerk and proprietor, widow and maid, brought out their hoardings; the great project was discussed in clubs, cafes, and department stores, and by citizens hanging on the straps of the very cars that were to be consolidated—­golden word!  Very little appeared about Nelson Langmaid, who was philosophically content.  But to Mr. Parr, who was known to dislike publicity, were devoted pages in the Sunday newspapers, with photographs of the imposing front of his house in Park Street, his altar and window in St. John’s, the Parr building, and even of his private car, Antonia.