realized that half a dozen rejoicing young workmen were about to rush him. Though he had an excellent opinion of himself, he had seen too much football, as played by denominational colleges with the Christian accompaniments of kneeing and gouging, to imagine that he could beat half a dozen workmen at once.
It is doubtful whether he would ever have been led to further association with the Lord and Eddie Fislinger had not Providence intervened in its characteristically mysterious way. The foremost of the attackers was just reaching for Elmer when the mob shouted, "Look out! The cops!"
The police force of Cato, all three of them, were wedging into the crowd. They were lanky, mustached men with cold eyes.
"What's all this row about?" demanded the chief.
He was looking at Elmer, who was three inches taller than any one else in the assembly.
"Some of these fellows tried to stop a peaceable religious assembly—why, they tried to rough-house the Reverend here—and I was protecting him," Elmer said.
"That's right, Chief. Reg'lar outrage," complained Jim.
"That's true, Chief," whistled Eddie Fislinger from his box.
"Well, you fellows cut it out now. What the hell! Ought to be ashamed yourselves, bullyragging a Reverend! Go ahead, Reverend!"
The baker had come to, and had been lifted to his feet. His expression indicated that he had been wronged and that he wanted to do something about it, if he could only find out what had happened. His eyes were wild, his hair was a muddy chaos, and his flat floury cheek was cut. He was too dizzy to realize that the chief of police was before him, and his fuming mind stuck to the belief that he was destroying all religion.
"Yah, so you're one of them wishy-washy preachers, too!" he screamed at Elmer—just as one of the lanky policemen reached out an arm of incredible length and nipped him.
The attention of the crowd warmed Elmer, and he expanded in it, rubbed his mental hands in its blaze.
"Maybe I ain't a preacher! Maybe I'm not even a good Christian!" he cried. "Maybe I've done a whole lot of things I hadn't ought to of done. But let me tell you, I respect religion—"
