“Aw, this country’s all right, Pa,” said Ben.
“Sure, dot’s right,” said Oscar Hochlauf contentedly, while he sliced the foam off a glass of beer. “The Americans, like when I knew dem first, when dere was Bill Nye and Eugene Field, dey used to laugh. Now dey get solemn. When dey start laughing again, dey roar dere heads off at fellows like Gantry and most all dese preachers dat try to tell everybody how dey got to live. And if the people laugh—oof!—God help the preachers!”
“Vell, that’s how it is. Say, did I tell you, Oscar,” said the Swedish tailor, “my grandson Villiam, he got a scholarship in the university!”
“That’s fine!” they all agreed, slapping Daddy Sorenson on the back … as a dozen policemen, followed by a large and gloomy gentleman armed with a Bible, burst in through the front and back doors, and the gloomy gentleman, pointing at the astounded Oscar, bellowed, “Arrest that man and hold all these other fellows!”
To Oscar then, and to an audience increasing ten a second:
“I’ve got you! You’re the kind that teaches young boys to drink—it’s you that start them on the road to every hellish vice, to gambling and murder, with your hellish beverages, with your draught of the devil himself!”
Arrested for the first time in his life, bewildered, broken, feebly leaning on the arms of two policemen, Oscar Hochlauf straightened at this, and screamed:
“Dot’s a damned lie! Always when you let me, I handle Eitelbaum’s beer, the finest in the state, and since den I make my own beer. It is good! It is honest! ‘Hellish beverage!’ Dot you should judge of beer—dot a pig should judge poetry! Your Christ dot made vine, he vould like my beer!”
Elmer jumped forward with his great fist doubled. Only the sudden grip of the police sergeant kept him from striking down the blasphemer. He shrieked, “Take that foul-mouthed bum to the wagon! I’ll see he gets the limit!”
And Bill Kingdom murmured to himself, “Gallant preacher single-handed faces saloon full of desperate gunmen and rebukes them for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Oh, I’ll get a swell story. … Then I think I’ll commit suicide.”
VIII
The attendant crowd and the policemen had whispered that, from the careful way in which he followed instead of leading, it might be judged that the Reverend Lieutenant Gantry was afraid of the sinister criminals whom he was attacking. And it is true that Elmer had no large fancy for revolver duels. But he had not lost his delight in conflict; he was physically no coward; and they were all edified to see this when the raiders dashed into the resort of Nick Spoletti.
Nick, who conducted a bar in a basement, had been a prizefighter; he was cool and quick. He heard the crusaders coming and shouted to his customers, “Beat it! Side door! I’ll hold ’em back!”
He met the first of the policemen at the bottom of the steps, and dropped him with the crack of a bottle over his head. The next tripped over the body, and the others halted, peering, looking embarrassed, drawing revolvers. But Elmer smelled battle. He forgot holiness. He dropped his Bible, thrust aside two policemen, and swung on Nick from the bottom step. Nick slashed at his head, but with a boxer’s jerk of the neck Elmer slid away from the punch, and knocked out Nick with a deliberately murderous left.
“Golly, the parson’s got an awful wallop!” grunted the sergeant, and Bill Kingdom sighed, “Not so bad!” and Elmer knew that he had won … that he would be the hero of Zenith … that he was now the Sir Lancelot as well as the William Jennings Bryan of the Methodist Church.
IX
After two more raids he was delivered at his home by patrol wagon, and left with not entirely sardonic cheers by the policemen.
Cleo rushed to meet him, crying, “Oh, you’re safe! Oh, my dear, you’re hurt!”
His cheek was slightly bleeding.
In a passion of admiration for himself so hot that it extended even to her, he clasped her, kissed her wetly, and roared, “It’s nothing! Oh, it went great! We raided five places—arrested twenty-seven criminals—took them in every sort of horrible debauchery—things I never dreamed could exist!”
“You poor dear!”
There was not enough audience, with merely Cleo, and the maid peering from the back of the hall.
“Let’s go and tell the kids. Maybe they’ll be proud of their dad!” he interrupted her.
“Dear, they’re asleep—”
“Oh! I see! Sleep is more important to ’em than to know their father is a man who isn’t afraid to back up his gospel with his very life!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—I meant—Yes, of course, you’re right. It’ll be a wonderful example and inspiration. But let me put some stickum plaster on your cheek first.”
By the time she had washed the cut, and bound it and fussed over it, he had forgotten the children and their need of an heroic exemplar, as she had expected, and he sat on the edge of the bathtub telling her that he was an entire Trojan army. She was so worshipful that he became almost amorous, until it seemed to him from her anxious patting of his arm that she was trying to make him so. It angered him—that she, so unappealing, should have the egotism to try to attract a man like himself. He went off to his own room, wishing that Lulu were here to rejoice in his splendor, the beginning of his fame as the up-to-date John Wesley.
Chapter XXVII
I
Elmer, in court, got convictions of sixteen out of the twenty-seven fiends whom he had arrested, with an extra six months for Oscar Hochlauf for resisting arrest and the use of abusive and profane language. The judge praised him; the mayor forgave him; the chief of police shook his hand
