fumbling his bony jaw. He had been withdrawn from routine service for a
number of years, doing a little insurance canvassing on his own account,
and also travelling for the Book Concern. Now that he wished to return
to parochial work, the richest prize in the whole list, Tecumseh, was
given to him--to him who had never been asked to preach at a Conference,
and whose archaic nasal singing of "Greenland's Icy Mountains" had made
even the Licensed Exhorters grin! It was too intolerably dreadful to
think of!

An embittered whisper to the effect that Tisdale was the Bishop's cousin
ran round from pew to pew. This did not happen to be true, but indignant
Tecumseh gave it entire credit. The throngs about the doors dwindled as
by magic, and the aisles cleared. Local interest was dead; and even some
of the pewholders rose and made their way out. One of these murmured
audibly to his neighbors as he departed that HIS pew could be had now
for sixty dollars.

So it happened that when, a little later on, the appointment of Theron
Ware to Octavius was read out, none of the people of Tecumseh either
noted or cared. They had been deeply interested in him so long as
it seemed likely that he was to come to them--before their clearly
expressed desire for him had been so monstrously ignored. But now what
became of him was no earthly concern of theirs.

After the Doxology had been sung and the Conference formally declared
ended, the Wares would fain have escaped from the flood of handshakings
and boisterous farewells which spread over the front part of the church.
But the clergymen were unusually insistent upon demonstrations of
cordiality among themselves--the more, perhaps, because it was evident
that the friendliness of their local hosts had suddenly evaporated--and,