I started up, involuntarily.  “Oh, shame!  Shame!” I cried, and would have rushed out into the aisle.  But I had to pass my uncle, and he had no intention of letting me make myself a spectacle.  He threw his arms about me, and pinned me against the pew in front; and as he is one of the ten ranking golfers at the Western City Country Club, his embrace carried authority.  I struggled, but there I stayed, shouting, “For shame!  For shame!” and my uncle exclaiming, in a stern whisper, “Shut up!  Sit down, you fool!” and my Aunt Caroline holding onto my coat-tails, crying, and my aunt Jennie threatening to faint.

The melee came quickly to an end, for the men of the congregation seized the half dozen disturbers and flung them outside, and mounted guard to make sure they did not return.  I sank back into my seat, my worthy uncle holding my arm tightly with both hands, lest I should try to make my escape over the laps of Aunt Caroline and Aunt Jennie.

All this time the Reverend Lettuce-Spray had been standing in the pulpit, making no sound.  Now, as the congregation settled back into order, he said, with the splendid, conscious self-possession of one who can remain “equal to the occasion”:  “We will resume the service.”  And he opened his portfolio, and spread out his manuscript before him, and announced: 

“Our text for the morning is the fifth chapter of the gospel according to St. Matthew, the thirty-ninth and fortieth verses:  ’But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil:  but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if any man shall sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”

XXXIX

I sat through the sermon, and the offertory, and the recessional.  After that my uncle tried to detain me, to warn and scold me; but he no longer used physical force, and nothing but that would have held me.  At the door I asked one of the ushers what had become of the prophet, thinking he might be in jail.  But the answer was that the gang had gone off, carrying their wounded; so I ran round the corner to where my car was parked, and within ten minutes I was on Western City Street, where Carpenter had announced that he would speak.

There had been nothing said about the proposed meeting in the papers, and no one knew about it save those who had been present at Grant Hall.  But it looked as if they had told everyone they knew, and everyone they had told had come.  The wide street was packed solid for a block, and in the midst of this throng stood Carpenter, upon a wagon, making a speech.

There was no chance to get near, so I bethought me of an alley which ran parallel to the street.  There was an obscure hotel on the street, and I entered it through the rear entrance, and had no trouble in persuading the clerk to let me join some of the guests of the hotel who were watching the scene from the second story windows.