They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second ComingSinclair, Upton
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They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming
Sinclair, Upton
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Fiction
All this time the Reverend Lettuce-Spray had been standing in the
pulpit, making no sound. Now, as the congregation settled back into
order, he said, with the splendid, conscious self-possession of one
who can remain “equal to the occasion”: “We will resume the
service.” And he opened his portfolio, and spread out his manuscript
before him, and announced:
“Our text for the morning is the fifth chapter of the gospel
according to St. Matthew, the thirty-ninth and fortieth verses: 'But
I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man
shall sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also.”
XXXIX
I sat through the sermon, and the offertory, and the recessional.
After that my uncle tried to detain me, to warn and scold me; but he
no longer used physical force, and nothing but that would have held
me. At the door I asked one of the ushers what had become of the
prophet, thinking he might be in jail. But the answer was that the
gang had gone off, carrying their wounded; so I ran round the corner
to where my car was parked, and within ten minutes I was on Western
City Street, where Carpenter had announced that he would speak.
There had been nothing said about the proposed meeting in the
papers, and no one knew about it save those who had been present at
Grant Hall. But it looked as if they had told everyone they knew,
and everyone they had told had come. The wide street was packed
solid for a block, and in the midst of this throng stood Carpenter,
upon a wagon, making a speech.
There was no chance to get near, so I bethought me of an alley which
ran parallel to the street. There was an obscure hotel on the
street, and I entered it through the rear entrance, and had no
trouble in persuading the clerk to let me join some of the guests of
the hotel who were watching the scene from the second story windows.
The first thing which caught my attention was the figure of Everett,
seated on the floor of the wagon from which the speech was being
made. I saw that his face was covered with blood; I learned later
that he had three teeth knocked out, and his nose broken.
Nevertheless, there he was with his stenographer's notebook, taking
down the prophet's words. He told me afterwards that he had taken
even what Carpenter said in the church. “I've an idea he won't last
very long,” was the way he put it; “and if they should get rid of
him, every word he's said will be precious. Anyhow, I'm going to get
what I can.”
Also I saw Korwsky, lying on the floor of the wagon, evidently
knocked out; and two other men whom I did not know, nursing battered
and bloody faces. Having taken all that in at a glance, I gave my
attention to what Carpenter was saying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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