at least in that audience was not hampered by inherited or acquired reverence for the sacred edifice. Norman Douglas was, as Susan had often vowed crisply, nothing more or less than a “pagan.” But he was a rampantly patriotic pagan, and when the significance of what Mr. Pryor was saying fully dawned on him, Norman Douglas suddenly went Berserk. With a positive roar he bounded to his feet in his side pew, facing the audience, and shouted in tones of thunder,
“Stop—stop—STOP that abominable prayer! What an abominable prayer!”
Every head in the church flew up. A boy in khaki at the back gave a faint cheer. Mr. Meredith raised a deprecating hand, but Norman was past caring for anything like that. Eluding his wife’s restraining grasp, he gave one mad spring over the front of the pew and caught the unfortunate Whiskers-on-the-moon by his coat collar. Mr. Pryor had not “stopped” when so bidden, but he stopped now, perforce, for Norman, his long red beard literally bristling with fury, was shaking him until his bones fairly rattled, and punctuating his shakes with a lurid assortment of abusive epithets.
“You blatant beast!”—shake—“You malignant carrion”—shake—“You pig-headed varmint!”—shake—“you putrid pup,”—shake—“you pestilential parasite”—shake—“you—Hunnish scum”—shake—“you indecent reptile—you—you—”
Norman choked for a moment. Everybody believed that the next thing he would say, church or no church, would be something that would have to be spelled with asterisks; but at that moment Norman encountered his wife’s eye and he fell back with a thud
