Elmer was not shocked. In fact he had another droll tale himself.
He went home at one.
“I’ll have a good time with those folks,” he reflected, in the luxury of a taxicab. “Only, better be careful with old Rigg. He’s a shrewd bird, and he’s onto me. … Now what do you mean?” indignantly. “What do you mean by ‘onto me’? There’s nothing to be onto! I refused a drink and a cigar, didn’t I? I never cuss except when I lose my temper, do I? I’m leading an absolutely Christian life. And I’m bringing a whale of a lot more souls into churches than any of these pussyfooting tin saints that’re afraid to laugh and jolly people. ‘Onto me’ nothing!”
III
On Saturday morning, on the page of religious advertisements in the Zenith newspapers, Elmer’s first sermon was announced in a two-column spread as dealing with the promising problem: “Can Strangers Find Haunts of Vice in Zenith?”
They could, and with gratifying ease, said Elmer in his sermon. He said it before at least four hundred people, as against the hundred who had normally been attending.
He himself was a stranger in Zenith, and he had gone forth and he had been “appalled—aghast—bowed in shocked horror” at the amount of vice, and such interesting and attractive vice. He had investigated Braun’s Island, a rackety beach and dance floor and restaurant at South Zenith, and he had found mixed bathing. He described the ladies’ legs; he described the two amiable young women who had picked him up. He told of the waiter who, though he denied that Braun’s restaurant itself sold liquor, had been willing to let him know where to get it, and where to find an all-night game of poker—“and, mind you, playing poker for keeps, you understand,” Elmer explained.
On Washington Avenue, North, he had found two movies in which “the dreadful painted purveyors of putrescent vice”—he meant the movie actors—had on the screen danced “suggestive steps which would bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of any decent woman,” and in which the same purveyors had taken drinks which he assumed to be the deadly cocktails. On his way to his hotel after these movies three ladies of the night had accosted him, right under the White Way of lights. Street-corner loafers—he had apparently been very chummy with them—had told him of blind pigs, of dope-peddlers, of strange lecheries.
“That,” he shouted, “is what one stranger was able to find in your city—now my city, and well beloved! But could he find virtue so easily, could he, could he? Or just a lot of easygoing churches, lollygagging along, while the just God threatens this city with the fire and devouring brimstone that destroyed proud Sodom and Gomorrah in their abominations! Listen! With the help of God Almighty, let us raise here in this church a standard of virtue that no stranger can help seeing! We’re lazy. We’re not burning with a fever of righteousness. On your knees, you slothful, and pray God to forgive you and to aid you and me to form a brotherhood of helpful, joyous, fiercely righteous followers of every commandment of the Lord Our God!”
The newspapers carried almost all of it. … It had just happened that there were reporters present—it had just happened that Elmer had been calling up the Advocate-Times on Saturday—it had just happened that he remembered he had met Bill Kingdom, the Advocate reporter, in Sparta—it had just happened that to help out good old Bill he had let him know there would be something stirring in the church, come Sunday.
The next Saturday Elmer advertised “Is There a Real Devil Sneaking Around with Horns and Hoofs?” On Sunday there were seven hundred present. Within two months Elmer was preaching, ever more confidently and dramatically, to larger crowds than were drawn by any other church in Zenith except four or five.
But, “Oh, he’s just a new sensation—he can’t last out—hasn’t got the learning and staying-power. Besides, Old Town is shot to pieces,” said Elmer’s fellow vinters—particularly his annoyed fellow Methodists.
IV
Cleo and he had found a gracious old house in Old Town, to be had cheap because of the ragged neighborhood. He had hinted to her that since he was making such a spiritual sacrifice as to take a lower salary in coming to Zenith, her father, as a zealous Christian, ought to help them out; and if she should be unable to make her father perceive this, Elmer would regretfully have to be angry with her.
She came back from a visit to Banjo Crossing with two thousand dollars.
Cleo had an instinct for agreeable furniture. For the old house, with its white mahogany paneling, she got reproductions of early New England chairs and commodes and tables. There was a white-framed fireplace and a fine old crystal chandelier in the living-room.
“Some class! We can entertain the bon ton here, and, believe me, I’ll soon be having a lot of ’em coming to church! … Sometimes I do wish, though, I’d gone out for the Episcopal Church. Lots more class there, and they don’t beef if a minister takes a little drink,” he said to Cleo.
“Oh, Elmer, how can
