The smiles on the faces of the vestry deepened. The ability to put a
matter thus humorously was a part of Nelson Langmaid's power with men
and juries.

"I venture to add another qualification," he continued, "and that is
virility. We don't want a bandbox rector. Well, I happen to have in
mind a young man who errs somewhat on the other side, and who looks a
little like a cliff profile I once saw on Lake George of George
Washington or an Indian chief, who stands about six feet two.
He's a bachelor--if that's a drawback. But I am not at all sure he can
be induced to leave his present parish, where he has been for ten years."

"I am," announced Wallis Plimpton, with his hands in his pockets,
"provided the right man tackles him."



III

Nelson Langmaid's most notable achievement, before he accomplished the
greater one of getting a new rector for St. John's, had been to construct
the "water-tight box" whereby the Consolidated Tractions Company had
become a law-proof possibility. But his was an esoteric reputation,
--the greater fame had been Eldon Parr's. Men's minds had been dazzled
by the breadth of the conception of scooping all the street-car lines of
the city, long and short, into one big basket, as it were; and when the
stock had been listed in New York, butcher and baker, clerk and
proprietor, widow and maid, brought out their hoardings; the great
project was discussed in clubs, cafes, and department stores, and by