"'Then,' I continued, 'that ain't all. There's another idea I propose,
to go along with the pastor, as a sort of side line. That's tradin'
stamps. Simple, ain't it? Wonder why you never thought of it yourselves,
don't you? That's the way with all bright ideas. People drink soda water
all their lives, and along comes a genius and hears the fizz, and goes
and invents a Westinghouse brake. Same as Newton and the apple, and
Columbus and the egg.

"'All you have to do is to give tradin' stamps for attendance, and your
church fills right up, and John Henry keeps 'em happy. Stamps can be
redeemed at any store. So many stamps gets, say a parlor lamp or a
masterpiece of Italian art in a gilt frame; so many more draws a steam
cooker or an oil stove; so many more and you have a bicycle or a hair
mattress or a what-not; and so on up to where a hat full of 'em gets an
automobile.

"'I tell you when a family has a what-not in their eye they ain't goin'
to let a little rain keep 'em home from church. If they're all really
too sick to go they'll hire a substitute. And I opine these here stamps
will have a powerful alleviatin' effect on Sunday-sickness.

"'And then,' I went on, waxin' eloquent, and leanin' the pastor against
the wall, so I could put one hand in my coat and gesture with the other
and make it more impressive,--'and then,' I says, 'just think of them
other churches. We won't do a thing to 'em. That Baptist preacher thinks
he's a wizz because he makes six hundred calls a year. You just wait
till the nigger gets to haulin' John Henry here around town and loadin'
him up with rapid-fire conversations. That Baptist gent will look like
thirty cents, that's what he'll look like. He'll think he's Rojessvinsky
and the Japanese fleet's after him. And the Campbellites think they done