“Clk!” Mr. Pursly looked up more quickly this time, and a faint suggestion of an expression just vanishing from Mr. Hitt’s lips awakened in his unsuspicious breast a horrible suspicion that Brother Joash had chuckled. “—whose like we shall not soon again see in our midst. The children on the streets will miss his familiar face—“ “Say!” broke in Brother Joash, “how’d it be for a delegation of child’n to foller the remains, with flowers or sump’n’? They’d volunteer if you give ’em the hint, wouldn’t they?” “It would be—unusual,” said the minister. “All right,” assented Mr. Hitt, “only an _i_dee of mine. Thought they might like it. Go ahead!” Mr. Pursly went ahead, haunted by an agonizing fear of that awful chuckle, if chuckle it was. But he got along without interruption until he reached a casual and guarded allusion to the widows and orphans without whom no funeral oration is complete. Here the metallic voice of Brother Joash rang out again. “Say! Ef the widders and orphans send a wreath—or a Gates–Ajar—_ef_ they do, mind ye!—you’ll hev it put a–top of the coffin, where folks’ll see it, wun’t ye?” “Certainly,” said the Reverend Mr. Pursly, hastily; “his charities were unostentatious, as was the whole tenor of his life. In these days of spendthrift extravagance, our young men may well—“ “Say!” Brother Joash broke in once more. “Ef any one wuz to git up right there, an’ say that I wuz the derndest meanest, miserly, penurious, parsimonious old hunks in ’Quawket, you wouldn’t let him talk like that, would ye?” “Unquestionably not, Mr. Hitt!” said the minister, in horror. “Thought not. On’y thet’s whut I heern one o’ your deacons say about me the other day. Didn’t know I heern him, but I did. I thought you wouldn’t allow no such talk as that. Go ahead!” “I must ask you, Mr. Hitt,” Mr. Pursly said, perspiring at every pore, “to refrain from interruptions—or I—I really—can not continue.” “All right,” returned Mr. Hitt, with perfect calmness. “Continner.” Mr. Pursly continued to the bitter end, with no further interruption that called for remonstrance. There were soft inarticulate sounds that seemed to him to come from Brother Joash’s dark corner. But it might have been the birds in the _Ampelopsis Veitchii_ that covered the house. Brother Joash expressed no opinion, good or ill, of the address. He paid his ten dollars, in one–dollar bills, and took his receipt. But as the anxious minister followed him to the door, he turned suddenly and said: “You was talkin’ ’bout a Perrish House?” “Yes—“ “Kin ye keep a secret?” “I hope so—yes, certainly, Mr. Hitt.” “The’ ’ll be one.” * * * * * “I feel,” said the Reverend Mr. Pursly to his wife, “as if I had carried every stone of that Parish House on my shoulders and put it in its place. Can you make me a cup of tea, my dear?” * * * * * [Illustration]