Every evening during his meetings Reverend Graham would institute a two-minute session of silent prayer. In - view of George’s admitted downfall at a later stand, I trust it will not now be considered sacrilegious for me to hazard an opinion that those silent periods offered the preacher an excellent opportunity to pray for grace. It was not required by custom then for those seeking salvation to come clear down to earth, and some merely bowed their heads, rested them on the backs of deserted chairs, and whispered when so inclined. The girl and I, we did not desecrate the hallowed moment. We didn’t have to. Silence was golden. I was conceited enough just then to believe that this beautiful girl, thoroughly repentant or no, would have gone through George’s pictured purgatory for me. And nothing happened that could be chalked up as material gain for the better life. Well, I ask you, how in the name of high heaven, could it? I’m not particularly proud of it, though. But, you know, if your chariot does not come along, you can’t take a ride. I certainly do not wish to cast reflection on the Church. The Church, as a Church, is really a grand institution. I should hate to think where we would be in a world without it. Henry DeForest, Yale graduate, said the tent doings was proselytizing. Perhaps you would like to know how I fared in the days to come with this renewed lease on life which the Evangelist’s revival had brought me? Well, “Papa” shelved his dislike of my poker-playing, and both he and “mama” greeted me as a friend ever after. They were really fine people—I might say the very BEST, with capitals. “Papa” had played a little poker himself—and that too, by-gosh, in our penny-ante game—and his wish for a switch in the matter of his daughter’s company was based on too slim premise to set store by, now that the girl had told him with flat-footed finality that it would not work. And the girl? Well, I had to go away, first to Centralia, then to Seneca to help Theodore Wolfley print his newly purchased Tribune, and I turned her over to my best poker-playing friend to keep for me against the time when I might return. Now, to do me this small favor my friend had to drop another girl with whom he had been keeping company steadily for two years. He probably saw possibilities in the change, but he was really too fine—and too ably assisted by the girl—to take advantage of a friend’s absence. As my trusted friend and my girl in escrow were already lined up for the party that first night after my return, it was mutually agreed that—just for once—I should line up with my friend’s discarded girl, who was still free. It worked out all right—and it was wonderful to be back with the old crowd again. Now, don’t jump at conclusions. Though she was a mighty fine girl, and good looking too, I did not find her preferable to the other girl. Just why I made it a regular habit for nearly a year, was quite a different matter.