ministrations. He had reclaimed some sad sinners of the baser sort from
time to time with very little effort, but people concerning whom he
frequently lay awake nights were men and women who were nominally in
good standing in his own denomination and in the particular flock over
which he was shepherd.

He had therefore made no particular haste to call on Sam Kimper, being
entirely satisfied, as he told his wife, his only confidante, that so
long as the man was following the course which he was reported to have
laid down for himself he was not likely to go far astray, whereas a
number of members of the congregation, men of far more influence in the
community, seemed determined to break from the straight and narrow way
at very slight provocation, and among these, the reverend doctor sadly
informed his wife, he feared Deacon Quickset was the principal. The
deacon was a persistent man in business,--"diligent in business" was
the deacon's own expression in justification of whatever neglect his
own wife might chance to charge him with,--but it seemed to some
business-men of the town, as well as to his own pastor, that the
deacon's diligence was overdoing itself, and that, in the language of
one of the store-keepers, he had picked up a great deal more than he
could carry. He was a director in a bank, agent for several insurance
companies, manager of a land-improvement company, general speculator in
real estate, and a man who had been charged with the care of a great
deal of property which had belonged to old acquaintances now deceased.
That he should be very busy was quite natural, but that his promises
sometimes failed of fulfilment was none the less annoying, and once in
a while unpleasant rumors were heard in the town about the deacon's
financial standing and about his manner of doing business. Still, Dr.
Guide did not drop Sam Kimper from his mind, and one day when he
chanced to be in the vicinity of Larry Highgetty's shop he opened the