“Wesley, dear, supper is served.”
“Oh, very well, my dear. The ladies, Dr. Gantry—Mr. Gantry—as you may already have observed, they seem to have the strange notion that a household must be run on routine lines, and they don’t hesitate, bless ’em, to interrupt even an abstract discussion to bid us come to the festal board when they feel that it’s time, and I for one make haste to obey and—After supper there’s a couple of other photographs that might interest you, and I do want you to take a peep at my books. I know a poor bishop has no right to yield to the lust for material possessions, but I plead guilty to one vice—my inordinate love for owning fine items of literature. … Yes, dear, we’re coming at once. Toojoor la fam, Mr. Gantry!—always the ladies! Are you, by the way, married?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Well, well, you must take care of that. I tell you in the ministry there is always a vast, though often of course unfair, amount of criticism of the unmarried preacher, which seriously cramps him. Yes, my dear, we are coming.”
There were rolls hidden in the cornucopia-folded napkins, and supper began with a fruit cocktail of orange, apple, and canned pineapple.
“Well,” said Elmer, with a courtly bow to Mrs. Toomis, “I see I’m in high society—beginning with a cocktail! I tell you I just have to have my cocktail before the eats!”
It went over immensely. The bishop repeated it, choking.
IV
Elmer managed, during supper, to let them know that not only was he a theological seminary man, not only had he mastered psychology, Oriental occultism, and the methods of making millions, but also he had been general manager for the famous Miss Sharon Falconer.
Whether Bishop Toomis was considering, “I want this man—he’s a comer—he’d be useful to me,” is not known. But certainly he listened with zeal to Elmer, and cooed at him, and after supper, with not more than an hour of showing him the library and the mementos of far-off roamings, he took him off to the study, away from Mrs. Toomis, who had been interrupting, every quarter of an hour, with her own recollections of roast beef at Simpson’s, prices of rooms on Bloomsbury Square, meals on the French wagon restaurant, the speed of French taxicabs, and the view of the Eiffel Tower at sunset.
The study was less ornate than the living-room. There was a businesslike desk, a phonograph for dictation, a card catalogue of possible contributors to funds, a steel filing-cabinet, and the bishop’s own typewriter. The books were strictly practical: Cruden’s Concordance, Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, an atlas of Palestine, and the three published volumes of the Bishop’s own sermons. By glancing at these for not more than ten minutes, he could have an address ready for any occasion.
The bishop sank into his golden oak revolving desk-chair, pointed at his typewriter, and sighed, “From this horrid room you get a hint of how pressed I am by practical affairs. What I should like to do is to sit down quietly there at my beloved machine and produce some work of pure beauty that would last forever, where even the most urgent temporal affairs tend, perhaps, to pass away. Of course I have editorials in the Advocate, and my sermons have been published.”
He looked sharply at Elmer.
“Yes, of course, Bishop, I’ve read them!”
“That’s very kind of you. But what I’ve longed for all these years is sinfully worldly literary work. I’ve always fancied, perhaps vainly, that I have a talent—I’ve longed to do a book, in fact a novel—I have rather an interesting plot. You see, this farm boy, brought up in circumstances of want, with very little opportunity for education, he struggles hard for what book-learning he attains, but there in the green fields, in God’s own pure meadows, surrounded by the leafy trees and the stars overhead at night, breathing the sweet open air of the pastures, he grows up a strong, pure, reverent young man, and of course when he goes up to the city—I had thought of having him enter the ministry, but I don’t want to make it autobiographical, so I shall have him enter a commercial line, but one of the more constructive branches of the great realm of business, say like banking. Well, he meets the daughter of his boss—she is a lovely young woman, but tempted by the manifold temptations and gaieties of the city, and I want to show how his influence guides her away from the broad paths that lead to destruction, and what a splendid effect he has not only on her but on others in the mart of affairs. Yes, I long to do that, but—Sitting here, just us two, one almost feels as though it would be pleasant to smoke—Do you smoke?”
“No, thanks be to God, Bishop. I can honestly say that for years I have never known the taste of nicotine or alcohol.”
“God be praised!”
“When I was younger, being kind of, you might say, a vigorous fellow, I was led now and then into temptation, but the influence of Sister Falconer—oh, there was a sanctified soul, like a nun—only strictly Protestant, of course—they so uplifted me that now I am free of all such desires.”
“I am glad to hear it, Brother, so glad to hear it. … Now, Gantry, the other day you said something about having thought of coming into the Methodist fold. How seriously have you thought about it?”
“Very.”
“I wish you would. I mean—Of course neither you nor I is necessary to the progress of that great Methodist Church, which day by day is
