unreasonably. "Jest you look how the devil fools us.
He drops down this here virgin mantle on Canaan
and makes it look as good as you pretend you
think it is: as good as the Sunday-school room of a
country church--though THAT"--he went off on a
tangent, venomously--"is generally only another
whited sepulchre, and the superintendent's mighty
apt to have a bottle of whiskey hid behind the
organ, and--"

"Look here, Eskew," said Jonas Tabor, "that's
got nothin' to do with--"

"Why ain't it? Answer me!" cried Mr. Arp,
continuing, without pause: "Why ain't it? Can't
you wait till I git through? You listen to me, and
when I'm ready I'll listen to--"

"See here," began the Colonel, making himself
heard over three others, "I want to ask you--"

"No, sir!" Mr. Arp pounded the floor irascibly
with his hickory stick. "Don't you ask me anything!
How can you tell that I'm not going to
answer your question without your asking it, till
I've got through? You listen first. I say, here's
a town of nearly thirty thousand inhabitants,
every last one of 'em--men, women, and children--
selfish and cowardly and sinful, if you could see
their innermost natures; a town of the ugliest and