Christian life -- Fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Love stories; Missions -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
“It is one of my people,” explained Bayard curtly. He leaped from
the carriage, raised his hat, and ran.
“Just release this man, if you please,” he said to the police
authoritatively. “I know him; I am his minister. I’m going on the
train he meant to take. I’ll see him safely home. I’ll answer for
him.”
“Well--I don’t know about that, sir,” replied the smaller policeman
doubtfully.
But the larger one looked Bayard over, and made answer: “Oh,
bejabers, Tim, let ’im goa!”
Job, who was not too far gone to recognize his preserver, now threw
his arms affectionately around Bayard’s recoiling neck, and became
unendurably maudlin. In a voice audible the width of the street,
and with streaming tears and loathsome blessings, he identified
Bayard as his dearest, best, nearest, and most intimate of friends.
A laughing crowd collected and followed, as Bayard tried to hurry
to the station, encumbered by the grip of Job’s intoxicated
affection. Now falling, now staggering up, now down again, and
ever firmly held, Job looked up drunkenly into the white, delicate
face that seemed to rise above him by a space as far as the span
between the heavens and the earth. Stupidly he was aware that
the new minister was doing something by him that was not exactly
usual. He began to talk in thick, hyphenated sentences about his
wife and home, his boy, and the trip he had taken to Georges’. He
had made, he averred, a hundred dollars (which was possible), and
had two dollars and thirty-seven cents left (which was altogether
probable). Job complained that he had been robbed in Boston of the
difference, and, weeping, besought the new minister to turn back
and report the theft to the police.
“We shall lose the train, Job,” said Bayard firmly. “We must get
home to your wife and little boy.”
“Go wherever y’ say!” cried Job pleasantly. “Go to h---- along of
you, if you say so!”
There was something so grotesque in the situation that Bayard’s
soul recoiled within him. He was not used to this kind of thing. He
was no Christ, but a plain human man, and a young man at that. His
sense of dignity was terribly hurt. Without turning his head, he
knew when the carriage drove on. He felt her eyes upon him; he knew
the moment when she took them off; Job was attempting to kiss him
at that particular crisis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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