of a hot and lurid nature, in which he renounced a good many things he
had never possessed, and promised to do a lot of things of which he had
no idea, Mr. Offitt asked "if any brother had anything to offer for the
good of the order." This called Mr. Bott to his feet, and he made a
speech, on which he had been brooding all day, against the pride of
so-called science, the arrogance of unrighteous wealth, and the
grovelling superstition of Christianity. The light of the kerosene lamp
shone full on the decorated side of his visage, and touched it to a
ferocious purpose. But the brotherhood soon wearied of his oratory, in
which the blasphemy of thought and phrase was strangely contrasted with
the ecclesiastical whine which he had caught from the exhorters who
were the terror of his youth. The brothers began to guy him without
mercy. They requested him to "cheese it"; they assisted him with
uncalled-for and inappropriate applause, and one of the party got
behind him and went through the motion of turning a hurdy-gurdy. But
he persevered. He had joined the club to practise public speaking, and
he got a good half hour out of the brothers before they coughed him
down.

When he had brought his speech to a close, and sat down to wipe his
streaming face, a brother rose and said, in a harsh, rasping voice, "I
want to ask a question."

"That's in order, Brother Bowersox," said Offitt.

The man was a powerful fellow, six feet high. His head was not large,
but it was as round as an apple, with heavy cheek-bones, little eyes,
close-cut hair, and a mustache like the bristles of a blacking-brush.
He had been a driver on a streetcar, but had recently been dismissed
for insolence to passengers and brutality to his horses.