"Why, _they've_ got a swimmin'-hole right inside their church!" declared Gizzard with an air of omniscient loftiness. "A swimmin'-hole in the Baptis' Church!" howled Sube derisively. "You make me laugh! Say, Giz, who's been stringin' you?" "Nobody ain't been stringin' me," defended Gizzard stoutly. "Jus' shows you don't know much! There's one there, 'cause my dad painted it jus' last week with two coats of white 'namel and--" "What in the dickens would they have a swimmin'-hole in a church for? Jus' tell me that!" demanded Sube conclusively. "To bap-_tize_ people!" replied Gizzard, apparently greatly bored at this display of ignorance. "Didn't you know the Baptis'es don't jus' squirt a little water on a baby's bean? They let 'em grow up and then duck 'em all over." Sube had a vague recollection of something of the sort, but his interest in the matter was material rather than doctrinal. "How big is this wonderful swimmin'-hole?" he asked guardedly. "Big enough to swim in, all right," Gizzard assured him. "Where do they keep it?" Sube was feeling his way carefully, fearing a hoax of some sort. "It's down under the minister's desk," Gizzard told him with an air of vast importance. "You can't see it when you go in the church, but all you got to do is press a little button, and _Bingo!_--There's your swimmin'-hole!" A sort of "Behold!--" movement of the hand accompanied this exposition. Sube was torn between belief and skepticism. He hoped that what Gizzard was telling him was the truth. But the appearance of secret places at the pressing of buttons was associated in his mind with hip-pocket literature, rather than with the House of God. However, Gizzard's responses to his persistent questioning were so earnest and so convincing that Sube had just about concluded to become a Baptist, when Gizzard chanced to remark that he knew what the mysterious indoor pool was called. "What?" asked the others in a chorus. "My dad says they call it 'mershum,'" was the lofty response. Sube's Baptist leanings collapsed like a house of cards. "Now I _know_ you're lyin'," he growled disgustedly, "'cause that's a kind of a pipe you smoke. My father's got one." For a few moments conflict seemed inevitable. Then the discussion took a new angle and developed into an argument as to the knowledge of their respective fathers of the correct meaning of the word "mershum." After this had waged for a few minutes with honors about equally divided, Gizzard had a brilliant idea. "Look here, Sube!" he cried. "We could keep chewin' about this all day long and not get nowhere. But if I could _show_ it to you, then you'd have to b'lieve it!" "I'll b'lieve it jus' soon as I _see_ it," Sube admitted; "and not before." "All right!" shouted Gizzard, starting for the stairs. "Come on! I'll show it to you!" Sube stirred uneasily. "Yeah, and then when we got there you'd say we couldn't get in the church 'cause it was locked. You can't bluff _me_--"