“Why,” said Mr. Noyes, “you 've only to open the leds of your Bible, and choose a text, and then: When did this happen? Why did this happen? To who did this happen? and so forth and so on; and there's your sermon. I 've heard 'em so a hunderd times.” “All right,” said Mr. Snell; “I don't doubt you know; but as for me, I for one never happened to hear of anything that Uncle Capen did but whitewash and saw wood. Now what sort of an autobiographical sermon could you make out of sawing wood?” Whereat Leander Buffum proceeded, by that harsh, guttural noise well known to country boys, to imitate the sound of sawing through a log. His sally was warmly greeted. “The minister might narrate,” said Mr. Blood, “what Uncle Capen said to Issachar, when Issachar told him that he charged high for sawing wood. 'See here,' says Uncle Capen, 's'pos'n I do. My arms are shorter'n other folks's, and it takes me just so much longer to do it.'” “Well,” said Mr. Noyes, “I'm a fair man; always do exactly right is the rule I go by; and I will frankly admit, now and here, that if it's a biographical discourse they want, they 'll have to cut corners.” “_Pre-cise-ly_” said Mr. Snell; “and that's just what they do want.” “Well, well,” said Mr. Hamblin, laboriously rising and putting his spectacles into their silver case,--for it was supper-time,--“joking one side, if Uncle Capen never did set the pond afire, we 'd all rather take his chances to-day, I guess, than those of some smarter men.” At which Mr. Snell turned red; for he was a very smart man and had just failed,--to everybody's surprise, since there was no reason in the world why he should fail,--and had created more merriment for the public than joy among his creditors, by paying a cent and a half on the dollar. “Come in; sit down,” said Dr. Hunter, as the young minister appeared at his office door; and he tipped back in his chair, and put his feet upon a table. “What's the news?” “Doctor,” said Mr. Holt, laughing, as he laid down his hat and took an arm-chair; “you told me to come to you for any information. Now I want materials for a sermon on old Mr. Capen.” The Doctor looked at him with a half-amused expression, and then sending out a curl of blue smoke, he watched it as it rose melting into the general air. “You don't smoke, I believe?” he said to the minister. Holt smiled and shook his head. The Doctor put his cigar back into his mouth, clasped one knee in his hands, and fixed his eyes in meditation on a one-eared Hippocrates looking down with a dirty face from the top of a bookcase. Perhaps the Doctor was thinking of the two or three hundred complimentary visits he had been permitted to make upon Uncle Capen within ten years. Presently a smile broke over his face.