In another moment the congregation was stirring joyously, in unconscious relief that the sitting was over. The hum of voices assumed a pleasant social air, as friend and acquaintance turned to greet one another. The people moved slowly down the aisle. He caught a glimpse of his father, smiling and happy--happy that his work was done--passing his handkerchief over his reddened brow and bending to take the hands of those who came to speak to him and to congratulate him. Just then Selah Dudley gave his father his hand; the sight pleased Marley; and suddenly an idea came to him. CHAPTER XV A SAINT'S ADVICE On Monday morning Marley found Dudley at his post in the First National Bank. He halted at the little low gate in the rail that ran round Dudley's desk until Dudley looked up and saw him, and then Marley smiled. Dudley, conceiving it to be the propitiatory smile of the intending borrower, narrowed his eyes as he regarded him. "Well?" he said. Marley went in and sat down on the edge of the hard chair that was placed near Dudley. "I wish to have a little talk with you, Mr. Dudley," he said. He waited then for Dudley to reply, thinking perhaps he would be interested in the son of his pastor. Dudley had turned his chair a little, and seemed to have sunk a little lower in its brown leather cushions, worn to a hard shine during the long years he had sat there. The lower part of him was round and full and heavy, while his shoulders were narrow and sloping, and his chest sunken, as if, from sitting there so many years, his vitals had settled, giving him the figure of a half emptied bag of grain. His legs were thin, and his trousers crept constantly up the legs of the boots he wore; the boots were blackened as far as the ankles, above the ankles they were wrinkled and scuffed to a dirty brown. Marley noted these details hurriedly, for it was the face of the man that held him. A scant beard, made up of a few harsh, wiry hairs, partly covered the banker's cheeks and chin; his upper lip was clean-shaven, and his hair, scant but still black, was combed forward at the temples, and carefully carried over from one side of his head to the other, ineffectually trying to hide the encroaching baldness. His nose was large; his eyes narrow under his almost barren brows and red at the edges of the lids that lacked lashes. "What do you want?" said Dudley, never moving, as if to economize his energies, as he economized his words and every other thing of value in his narrow world. Marley did not know just what reply to make: this was a critical moment to him, and he must make no mistake. "I came," he began, "to--to ask you for a little advice." Dudley, at this, settled a little more into his chair, possibly a little more comfortably; he seemed to relax somewhat, and his eyes were not quite so narrow as they had been. But he blinked a moment, and then cautiously asked: "What about?"