Elmer Gantry (15 page)

The Reverend Elmer Gantry was reading an illustrated pink periodical devoted to prize-fighters and chorus girls in his
room at Elizabeth J. Schmutz Hall late of an afternoon when two large men walked in without knocking.

“Why, good evening, Brother Bains—Brother Naylor! This is a pleasant surprise. I was, uh—Did you ever see this horrible
rag? About actoresses. An invention of the devil himself. I was thinking of denouncing it next Sunday. I hope you never read
it— won’t you sit down, gentlemen?—take this chair—I hope you never read it, Brother Floyd, because the footsteps of—”

“Gantry,” exploded Deacon Bains, “I want you to take your footsteps right now and turn ’em toward my house! You’ve been
fooling with my daughter, and either you’re going to marry her, or Floyd and me are going to take it out of your hide, and
way I feel just now, don’t much care which it is.”

“You mean to say that Lulu has been pretending—”

“Naw, Lulu ain’t said nothing. God, I wonder if I ought to LET the girl marry a fellow like you? But I got to protect her
good name, and guess Floyd and me can see to it you give her a square deal after the marriage. Now I’ve sent out word to
invite all the neighbors to the house tonight for a little sociable to tell ’em Lulu and you are engaged, and you’re going
to put on your Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and come with us, right now.”

“You can’t bully me into anything—”

“Take that side of him, Floyd, but I get the first lick. You get what’s left.”

They ranged up beside him. They were shorter, less broad, but their faces were like tanned hard leather, their eyes were
hard—

“You’re a big cuss, Brother Gantry, but guess you don’t get enough exercise no more. Pretty soft,” considered Deacon
Bains.

His fist was dropping down, down to his knee; his shoulder sloped down; his fist was coming up—and Floyd had suddenly
pinioned Elmer’s arms.

“I’ll do it! All right! All right!” Elmer shrieked.

He’d find a way to break the engagement. Already he was recovering his poise.

“Now you fellows listen to me! I’m in love with Lulu, and I intended to ask her the moment I finish here—less than three
months now—and get my first church. And then you two butt in and try to spoil this romance!”

“Hum, yes, I guess so,” Bains droned, inexpressible contempt in his dragging voice. “You save all them pretty words for
Lulu. You’re going to be married the middle of May—that’ll give time enough after the engagement so’s the neighbors won’t
think there’s anything wrong. Now into them clothes. Buggy waiting outside. We’ll treat you right. If you use Lulu like you
ought to, and honey her up and make her feel happy again, maybe Floyd and me won’t kill you the night of your wedding. We’ll
see. And we’ll always treat you fine in public—won’t even laugh when we hear you preaching. Now git, hear me?”

While he dressed, Elmer was able to keep his face turned from them, able to compose himself, so that he could suddenly
whirl on them with his handsomest, his most manly and winning smile.

“Brother Bains, I want to thank Cousin Floyd and you. You’re dead wrong about thinking I wouldn’t have done right by
Lulu. But I rejoice, sir, REJOICE, that she is blessed by having such loyal relatives!” That puzzled rather than captured
them, but he fetched them complete with a jovial, “And such husky ones! I’m pretty strong myself—keep up my exercise lot
more’n you think—but I guess I wouldn’t be one-two-three with you folks! Good thing for ole Elmer you never let loose that
darn’ mule-kick of yours, Brother Bains! And you’re right. No sense putting off the wedding. May fifteenth will be fine. Now
I want to ask one thing: Let me have ten minutes alone with Lu before you make the announcement. I want to console her—make
her happy. Oh, you can tell if I keep faith—the eagle eye of a father will know.”

“Well, my father’s eagle eye ain’t been working none too good lately, but I guess it’ll be all right for you to see
her.”

“Now, will you shake hands? Please!”

He was so big, so radiant, so confident. They looked sheepish, grinned like farmers flattered by a politician, and shook
hands.

There was a multitude at the Bainses’, also fried chicken and watermelon pickles.

The deacon brought Lulu to Elmer in the spare room and left her.

Elmer was at ease on the sofa; she stood before him, trembling, red-eyed.

“Come, you poor child,” he condescended.

She approached, sobbing, “Honestly, dear, I didn’t tell Pa anything—I didn’t ask him to do it—oh, I don’t want to if you
don’t.”

“There, there, child. It’s all right. I’m sure you’ll make a fine wife. Sit down.” And he permitted her to kiss his hand,
so that she became very happy and wept tremendously, and went out to her father rejoicing.

He considered, meanwhile, “That ought to hold you, damn you! Now I’ll figure out some way of getting out of this
mess.”

At the announcement of Lulu’s engagement to a Man of God, the crowd gave hoarse and holy cheers.

Elmer made quite a long speech into which he brought all that Holy Writ had to say about the relations of the sexes—that
is, all that he remembered and that could be quoted in mixed company.

“Go on, Brother! Kiss her!” they clamored.

He did, heartily; so heartily that he felt curious stirrings.

He spent the night there, and was so full of holy affection that when the family was asleep, he crept into Lulu’s
bedroom. She stirred on the pillow and whispered, “Oh, my darling! And you forgave me! Oh I do love you so!” as he kissed
her fragrant hair.

It was usual for the students of Mizpah to let Dean Trosper know if they should become engaged. The dean recommended them
for ministerial appointments, and the status of marriage made a difference. Bachelors were more likely to become assistants
in large city churches; married men, particularly those whose wives had lively piety and a knowledge of cooking, were
usually sent to small churches of their own.

The dean summoned Elmer to his gloomy house on the edge of the campus—it was a house which smelled of cabbage and wet
ashes—and demanded:

“Gantry, just what is this business about you and some girl at Schoenheim?”

“Why, Dean,” in hurt rectitude, “I’m engaged to a fine young lady there—daughter of one of my deacons.”

“Well, that’s good. It’s better to marry than to burn—or at least so it is stated in the Scriptures. Now I don’t want any
monkey-business about this. A preacher must walk circumspectly. You must shun the very appearance of evil. I hope you’ll
love and cherish her, and seems to me it would be well not only to be engaged to her but even to marry her. Thaddeldo.”

“Now what the devil did he mean by that?” protested Parsifal as he went home.

He had to work quickly. He had less than two months before the threatened marriage.

If he could entangle Lulu with some one? What about Floyd Naylor? The fool loved her.

He spent as much time in Schoenheim as possible, not only with Lulu but with Floyd. He played all his warm incandescence
on Floyd, and turned that trusting drudge from enemy into admiring friend. One day when Floyd and he were walking together
to the hand-car Elmer purred:

“Say, Floydy, some ways it’s kind of a shame Lu’s going to marry me and not you. You’re so steady and hard-working and
patient. I fly off the handle too easy.”

“Oh, gosh, no, I ain’t smart enough for her, Elmer. She ought to marry a fella with a lot of book-learning like you, and
that dresses swell, so she can be in society and everything.”

“But I guess you liked her pretty well yourself, eh? You ought to! Sweetest girl in the whole world. You kind of liked
her?”

“Yuh, I guess I did. I—Oh, well rats, I ain’t good enough for her, God bless her!”

Elmer spoke of Floyd as a future cousin and professed his fondness for him, his admiration of the young man’s qualities
and remarkable singing (Floyd Naylor sang about as Floyd Naylor would have sung.) Elmer spoke of him as a future cousin, and
wanted to see a deal of him.

He praised Lulu and Floyd to each other, and left them together as often as he could contrive, slipping back to watch
them through the window. But to his indignation they merely sat and talked.

Then he had a week in Schoenheim, the whole week before Easter. The Baptists of Schoenheim, with their abhorrence of
popery, did not make much of Easter as Easter; they called it “The Festival of Christ’s Resurrection,” but they did like
daily meetings during what the heretical world knew as Holy Week. Elmer stayed with the Bainses and labored mightily both
against sin and against getting married. Indeed he was so stirred and so eloquent that he led two sixteen-year-old girls out
of their sins, and converted the neighborhood object-lesson, a patriarch who drank hard cider and had not been converted for
two years.

Elmer knew by now that though Floyd Naylor was not exactly a virgin, his achievements and his resolution were
considerably less than his desires, and he set to work to improve that resolution. He took Floyd off to the pasture and,
after benignly admitting that perhaps a preacher oughtn’t to talk of such things, he narrated his amorous conquests till
Floyd’s eyes were hungrily bulging. Then, with giggling apologies, Elmer showed his collection of what he called Art
Photographs.

Floyd almost ate them, Elmer lent them to him. That was on a Thursday.

At the same time Elmer deprived Lulu all week of the caresses which she craved, till she was desperate.

On Friday Elmer held morning meeting instead of evening meeting, and arranged that Lulu and Floyd and he should have
picnic supper in the sycamore grove near the Bains house. He suggested it in a jocund idyllic way, and Lulu brightened. On
their way to the grove with their baskets she sighed to him, as they walked behind Floyd, “Oh, why have you been so cold to
me? Have I offended you again, dear?”

He let her have it, brutally: “Oh, don’t be such a damned whiner! Can’t you act as if you had SOME brains, just for
once?”

When they spread the picnic supper, she was barely keeping hold of her sobs.

They finished supper in the dusk. They sat quietly, Floyd looking at her, wondering at her distress, peeping nervously at
her pretty ankles.

“Say, I’ve got to go in and make some notes for my sermon tomorrow. No, you two wait for me here. Nicer out in the fresh
air. Be back in about half an hour,” said Elmer.

He made much of noisily swaggering away through the brush; he crept back softly, stood behind a sycamore near them. He
was proud of himself. It was working. Already Lulu was sobbing openly, while Floyd comforted her with “What is it, pretty?
What is it, dear? Tell me.”

Floyd had moved nearer to her (Elmer could just see them) and she rested her head on his cousinly shoulder.

Presently Floyd was kissing her tears away, and she seemed to be snuggling close to him. Elmer heard her muffled, “Oh,
you oughtn’t to kiss me!”

“Elmer said I should think of you as a sister, and I could kiss you—Oh, my God, Lulu, I do love you so terrible!”

“Oh, we oughtn’t—” Then silence.

Elmer fled into the barnyard, found Deacon Bains, and demanded harshly, “Come here! I want you to see what Floyd and Lulu
are doing! Put that lantern down. I’ve got one of these electric dinguses here.”

He had. He had bought it for this purpose. He also had a revolver in his pocket.

When Elmer and the bewildered Mr. Bains burst upon them, saw them in the circle from the electric flashlight, Lulu and
Floyd were deep in a devastating kiss.

“There!” bellowed the outraged Elmer. “Now you see why I hesitated to be engaged to that woman! I’ve suspected it all
along! Oh, abomination—abomination, and she that committeth it shall be cut off!”

Floyd sprang up, a fighting hound. Elmer could doubtless have handled him, but it was Deacon Bains who with one maniac
blow knocked Floyd down. The deacon turned to Elmer then, with the first tears he had known since boyhood: “Forgive me and
mine, Brother! We have sinned against you. This woman shall suffer for it, always. She’ll never enter my house again. She’ll
by God marry Floyd. And he’s the shiftlessest damn’ fool farmer in ten counties!”

“I’m going. I can’t stand this. I’ll send you another preacher. I’ll never see any of you again!” said Elmer.

“I don’t blame you. Try to forgive us, Brother.” The deacon was sobbing now, dusty painful sobbing, bewildered sobs of
anger.

The last thing Elmer saw in the light of his electric torch was Lulu huddled, with shrunk shoulders, her face insane with
fear.

As he tramped back to Babylon that evening, Elmer did not enjoy his deliverance so much as he had expected. But he worked
manfully at recalling Lulu’s repetitious chatter, her humorless ignorance, her pawing, her unambitious rusticity, and all
that he had escaped.

. . . To have her around—gumming his life—never could jolly the congregation and help him—and suppose he were in a big
town with a swell church—Gee! Maybe he wasn’t glad to be out of it! Besides! Really better for her. She and Floyd much
better suited . . .

He knew that Dean Trosper’s one sin was reading till late, and he came bursting into the dean’s house at the scandalous
hour of eleven. In the last mile he had heroically put by his exhilaration; he had thrown himself into the state of a
betrayed and desolate young man so successfully that he had made himself believe it.

“Oh, how wise you were about women, Dean!” he lamented. “A terrible thing has happened! Her father and I have just found
my girl in the arms of another man—a regular roué down there. I can never go back, not even for Easter service. And her
father agrees with me. . . . You can ask him!”

“Well, I am most awfully sorry to hear this, Brother Gantry. I didn’t know you could feel so deeply. Shall we kneel in
prayer, and ask the Lord to comfort you? I’ll send Brother Shallard down there for the Easter service—he knows the
field.”

On his knees, Elmer told the Lord that he had been dealt with as no man before or since. The dean approved his agonies
very much.

“There, there, my boy. The Lord will lighten your burden in his own good time. Perhaps this will be a blessing in
disguise—you’re lucky to get rid of such a woman, and this will give you that humility, that deeper thirsting after
righteousness, which I’ve always felt you lacked, despite your splendid pulpit voice. Now I’ve got something to take your
mind off your sorrows. There’s quite a nice little chapel on the edge of Monarch where they’re lacking an incumbent. I’d
intended to send Brother Hudkins—you know him; he’s that old retired preacher that lives out by the brick-yard—comes into
classes now and then—I’d intended to send him down for the Easter service. But I’ll send you instead, and in fact, if you
see the committee, I imagine you can fix it to have this as a regular charge, at least till graduation. They pay fifteen a
Sunday and your fare. And being there in a city like Monarch, you can go to the ministerial association and so on—stay over
till Monday noon every week—and make fine contacts, and maybe you’ll be in line for assistant in one of the big churches
next summer. There’s a morning train to Monarch—10:21, isn’t it? You take that train tomorrow morning, and go look up a
lawyer named Eversley. He’s got an office—where’s his letter?—his office is in the Royal Trust Company Building. He’s a
deacon. I’ll wire him to be there tomorrow afternoon, or anyway leave word, and you can make your own arrangements. The
Flowerdale Baptist Church, that’s the name, and it’s a real nice little modern plant, with lovely folks. Now you go to your
room and pray, and I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

It was an hilarious Elmer Gantry who took the 10:21 train to Monarch, a city of perhaps three hundred thousand. He sat in
the day-coach planning his Easter discourse. Jiminy! His first sermon in a real city! Might lead to anything. Better give
’em something red-hot and startling. Let’s see: He’d get away from this Christ is Risen stuff—mention it of course, just
bring it in, but have some other theme. Let’s see: Faith. Hope. Repentance—no, better go slow on that repentance idea; this
Deacon Eversley, the lawyer, might be pretty well-to-do and get sore if you suggested he had anything to repent of. Let’s
see: Courage. Chastity. Love— that was it—love!

And he was making notes rapidly, right out of his own head, on the back of an envelope:

“Guess you must be a newspaperman, Brother,” a voice assailed him.

Elmer looked at his seatmate, a little man with a whisky nose and asterisks of laughter-wrinkles round his eyes, a rather
sportingly dressed little man with the red tie which in 1906 was still thought rather the thing for socialists and
drinkers.

He could have a good time with such a little man, Elmer considered. A drummer. Would it be more fun to be natural with
him, or to ask him if he was saved, and watch him squirm? Hell, he’d have enough holy business in Monarch. So he turned on
his best good-fellow smile, and answered:

“Well, not exactly. Pretty warm for so early, eh?”

“Yuh, it certainly is. Been in Babylon long?”

“No, not very long.”

“Fine town. Lots of business.”

“You betcha. And some nice little dames there, too.”

The little man snickered. “There are, eh? Well, say, you better give me some addresses. I make that town once a month
and, by golly, I ain’t picked me out a skirt yet. But it’s a good town. Lots of money there.”

“Yes-sir, that’s a fact. Good hustling town. Quick turnover there all right. Lots of money in Babylon.”

“Though they do tell me,” said the little man, “there’s one of these preacher-factories there.”

“Is that a fact!”

“Yump. Say, Brother, this’ll make you laugh. Juh know what I thought when I seen you first—wearing that black suit and
writing things down? I thought maybe you was a preacher yourself!”

“Well—”

God, he couldn’t stand it! Having to be so righteous every Sunday at Schoenheim—Deacon Bains everlastingly asking these
fool questions about predestination or some doggone thing. Cer’nly had a vacation coming! And a sport like this fellow, he’d
look down on you if you said you were a preacher.

The train was noisy. If any neighboring cock crowed three times, Elmer did not hear it as he rumbled:

“Well, for the love of Mike! Though—” In his most austere manner: “This black suit happens to be mourning for one very
dear to me.”

“Oh, say, Brother, now you gotta excuse me! I’m always shooting my mouth off!”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

“Well, let’s shake, and I’ll know you don’t hold it against me.”

“You bet.”

From the little man came an odor of whisky which stirred Elmer powerfully. So long since he’d had a drink! Nothing for
two months except a few nips of hard cider which Lulu had dutifully stolen for him from her father’s cask.

“Well, what is your line, Brother?” said the little man.

“I’m in the shoe game.”

“Well, that’s a fine game. Yes-sir, people do have to have shoes, no matter if they’re hard up or not. My name’s Ad
Locust—Jesus, think of it, the folks named me Adney—can you beat that—ain’t that one hell of a name for a fellow that likes
to get out with the boys and have a good time! But you can just call me Ad. I’m traveling for the Pequot Farm Implement
Company. Great organization! Great bunch! Yes-sir, they’re great folks to work for, and hit it up, say! the sales-manager
can drink more good liquor than any fellow that’s working for him, and, believe me, there’s some of us that ain’t so slow
ourselves! Yes-sir, this fool idea that a lot of those fly-by-night firms are hollering about now, in the long run you don’t
get no more by drinking with the dealers—All damn’ foolishness. They say this fellow Ford that makes these automobiles talks
that way. Well, you mark my words: By 1910 he’ll be out of business, that’s what’ll happen to him; you mark my words!
Yes-sir, they’re a great concern, the Pequot bunch. Matter of fact, we’re holding a sales-conference in Monarch next
week.”

“Is that a fact!”

“Yes-sir, by golly, that’s what we’re doing. You know—read papers about how to get money out of a machinery dealer when
he ain’t got any money. Heh! Hell of a lot of attention most of us boys’ll pay to that junk! We’re going to have a good time
and get in a little good earnest drinking, and you bet the sales-manager will be right there with us! Say, Brother—I didn’t
quite catch the name—”

“Elmer Gantry is my name. Mightly glad to meet you.”

“Mighty glad to know you, Elmer. Say, Elmer, I’ve got some of the best Bourbon you or anybody else ever laid your face to
right here in my hip pocket. I suppose you being in a highbrow business like the shoe business, you’d just about faint if I
was to offer you a little something to cure that cough!”

“I guess I would, all right; yes-sir, I’d just about faint.”

“Well, you’re a pretty big fellow, and you ought to try to control yourself.”

“I’ll do my best, Ad, if you’ll hold my hand.”

“You betcha I will.” Ad brought out from his permanently sagging pocket a pint of Green River, and they drank together,
reverently.

“Say, jever hear the toast about the sailor?” inquired Elmer. He felt very happy, at home with the loved ones after long
and desolate wanderings.

“Dunno’s I ever did. Shoot!”

The little man wriggled. “Well, sir, I never did hear that one! Say, that’s a knock-out! By golly, that certainly is a
knockout! Say, Elm, whacha doing in Monarch? Wancha meet some of the boys. The Pequot conference don’t really start till
Monday, but some of us boys thought we’d kind of get together today and hold a little service of prayer and fasting before
the rest of the galoots assemble. Like you to meet ’em. Best bunch of sports YOU ever saw, lemme tell you that! I’d like for
you to meet ’em. And I’d like ’em to hear that toast. ‘Here’s to the port-wine in every lass.’ That’s pretty cute, all
right! Whacha doing in Monarch? Can’t you come around to the Ishawonga Hotel and meet some of the boys when we get in?”

Mr. Ad Locust was not drunk; not exactly drunk; but he had earnestly applied himself to the Bourbon and he was in a state
of superb philanthropy. Elmer had taken enough to feel reasonable. He was hungry, too, not only for alcohol but for
unsanctimonious companionship.

“I’ll tell you, Ad,” he said. “Nothing I’d like better, but I’ve got to meet a guy—important dealer—this afternoon, and
he’s dead against all drinking. Fact—I certainly do appreciate your booze, but don’t know’s I ought to have taken a single
drop.”

“Oh, hell, Elm, I’ve got some throat pastilles that are absolutely guaranteed to knock out the smell—absolutely. One lil
drink wouldn’t do us any harm. Certainly would like to have the boys hear that toast of yours!”

“Well, I’ll sneak in for a second, and maybe I can foregather with you for a while late Sunday evening or Monday morning,
but—”

“Aw, you ain’t going to let me down, Elm?”

“Well, I’ll telephone this guy, and fix it so’s I don’t have to see him till long ‘bout three o’clock.”

“That’s great!”

From the Ishawonga Hotel, at noon, Elmer telephoned to the office of Mr. Eversley, the brightest light of the Flowerdale
Baptist Church. There was no answer.

“Everybody in his office out to dinner. Well, I’ve done all I can till this afternoon,” Elmer reflected virtuously, and
joined the Pequot crusaders in the Ishawonga bar. . . . Eleven men in a booth for eight. Every one talking at once. Every
one shouting, “Say, waiter, you ask that damn’ bartender if he’s MAKING the booze!”

Within seventeen minutes Elmer was calling all of the eleven by their first names—frequently by the wrong first names—and
he contributed to their literary lore by thrice reciting his toast and by telling the best stories he knew. They liked him.
In his joy of release from piety and the threat of life with Lulu he flowered into vigor. Six several times the Pequot
salesmen said one to another, “Now there’s a fellow we ought to have with us in the firm,” and the others nodded.

He was inspired to give a burlesque sermon.

“I’ve got a great joke on Ad!” he thundered. “Know what he thought I was first? A preacher!”

“Say, that’s a good one!” they cackled.

“Well, at that, he ain’t so far off. When I was a kid, I did think some about being a preacher. Well, say now, listen,
and see if I wouldn’t ‘ve made a swell preacher!”

While they gaped and giggled and admired, he rose solemnly, looked at them solemnly, and boomed:

“Brethren and Sistern, in the hustle and bustle of daily life you guys certainly do forget the higher and finer things.
In what, in all the higher and finer things, in what and by what are we ruled excepting by Love? What is Love?”

“You stick around tonight and I’ll show you!” shrieked Ad Locust.

“Shut up now, Ad! Honest—listen. See if I couldn’t ‘ve been a preacher—a knock-out—bet I could handle a big crowd well’s
any of ’em. Listen. . . . What is Love? What is the divine Love? It is the rainbow, repainting with its spangled colors
those dreary wastes where of late the terrible tempest has wreaked its utmost fury—the rainbow with its tender promise of
surcease from the toils and travails and terrors of the awful storm! What is Love— the divine Love, I mean, not the carnal
but the divine Love, as exemplified in the church? What is—”

“Say!” protested the most profane of the eleven, “I don’t think you ought to make fun of the church. I never go to church
myself, but maybe I’d be a better fella if I did, and I certainly do respect folks that go to church, and I send my kids to
Sunday School. You God damn betcha!”

“Hell, I ain’t making fun of the church!” protested Elmer.

“Hell, he ain’t making fun of the church. Just kidding the preachers,” asserted Ad Locust. “Preachers are just ordinary
guys like the rest of us.”

“Sure; preachers can cuss and make love just like anybody else. I know! What they get away with, pretending to be
different,” said Elmer lugubriously, “would make you gentlemen tired if you knew.”

“Well, I don’t think you had ought to make fun of the church.”

“Hell, he ain’t making fun of the church.”

“Sure, I ain’t making fun of the church. But lemme finish my sermon.”

“Sure, let him finish his sermon.”

“Where was I? . . . What is Love? It is the evening and the morning star—those vast luminaries that as they ride the
purple abysms of the vasty firmament vouchsafe in their golden splendor, the promise of higher and better things
that—that—Well, say, you wise guys, would I make a great preacher or wouldn’t I?”

The applause was such that the bartender came and looked at them funereally; and Elmer had to drink with each of
them.

But he was out of practise. And he had had no lunch.

He turned veal-white; sweat stood on his forehead and in a double line of drops along his upper lip, while his eyes were
suddenly vacant.

Ad Locust squealed, “Say, look out! Elm’s passing out!”

They got him up to Ad’s room, one man supporting him on either side and one pushing behind, just before he dropped
insensible, and all that afternoon, when he should have met the Flowerdale Baptist committee, he snored on Ad’s bed, dressed
save for his shoes and coat. He came to at six, with Ad bending over him, solicitous.

“God I feel awful!” Elmer groaned.

“Here. What you need’s a drink.”

“Oh, Lord, I mustn’t take any more,” said Elmer, taking it. His hand trembled so that Ad had to hold the glass to his
mouth. He was conscious that he must call up Deacon Eversley at once. Two drinks later he felt better, and his hand was
steady. The Pequot bunch began to come in, with a view to dinner. He postponed his telephone call to Eversley till after
dinner; he kept postponing it; and he found himself, at ten on Easter morning, with a perfectly strange young woman in a
perfectly strange flat, and heard Ad Locust, in the next room, singing “How Dry I Am.”

Elmer did a good deal of repenting and groaning before his first drink of the morning, after which he comforted himself,
“Golly, I never will get to that church now. Well, I’ll tell the committee I was taken sick. Hey, Ad! How’d we ever get
here? Can we get any breakfast in this dump?”

He had two bottles of beer, spoke graciously to the young lady in the kimono and red slippers, and felt himself
altogether a fine fellow. With Ad and such of the eleven as were still alive, and a scattering of shrieking young ladies, he
drove out to a dance-hall on the lake, Easter Sunday afternoon, and they returned to Monarch for lobster and jocundity.

“But this ends it. Tomorrow morning I’ll get busy and see Eversley and fix things up,” Elmer vowed.