into the fold right then and there.

[Illustration: "We'll make the young people's society ride this
rooster out of town on a rail"]

By the time the Doc got around to preaching, Deacon Wiggleford was
looking like a fellow who'd bought a gold brick, and the Higher Lifer
like the brick. Everybody else felt and looked as if they were
attending the Doc's funeral, and, as usual, the only really calm and
composed member of the party was the corpse.

"You will find the words of my text," Doc began, "in the revised
version of the works of William Shakespeare, in the book--I mean
play--of Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two: 'Parting is such sweet
sorrow that I shall say good-night till it be morrow,'" and while the
audience was pulling itself together he laid out that text in four
heads, each with six subheads. Began on partings, and went on a still
hunt through history and religion for them. Made the audience part with
Julius Caesar with regret, and had 'em sniffling at saying good-by to
Napoleon and Jeff Davis. Made 'em feel that they'd lost their friends
and their money, and then foreclosed the mortgage on the old homestead
in a this-is-very-sad-but-I-need-the-money tone. In fact, when he had
finished with Parting and was ready to begin on Sweet Sorrow, he had
not only exhausted the subject, but left considerable of a deficit in
it.

They say that the hour he spent on Sweet Sorrow laid over anything
that the town had ever seen for sadness. Put 'em through every stage
of grief from the snuffles to the snorts. Doc always was a pretty
noisy preacher, but he began work on that head with