We went. At the doorstep of Bartholomew Storrs's office he paused.

"This sexton-guy," he said anxiously, "he don't play the ponies, ever, I
wouldn't suppose?"

"No more often than he commits murder or goes to sleep in church," I
smiled.

"Yeh?" he answered, disheartened. "I gotta get to him some other way. On
the poetry--and that's out of my line."

"I don't quite see what your difficulty is."

"By what you tell me, it's easier to break into a swell Fifth Avenue
Club than into this place."

"Except for those having the vested right, as your wife has."

"And this sexton-guy handles the concession for--he's got the say-so,"
he corrected himself hastily--"on who goes in and who stays out. Is
that right?"

"Substantially."

"And he'd rather keep 'em out than let 'em in?"

"Bartholomew," I explained, "considers that the honor of God's Acre is
in his keeping. He has a fierce sort of jealousy about it, as if he had
a proprietary interest in the place."