f the
ingenious "Hygrodeik." The first is the black broadcloth forming the
knees of his pantaloons; the second, the patch of carpet before his
mirror. If the first is unworn and the second is frayed and threadbare,
pray for him. If the first is worn and shiny, while the second keeps its
pattern and texture, get him to pray for you.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker should have gone down on his knees then and there,
and sought fervently for the grace which he was like to need in the
dangerous path just opening before him. He did not do this; but he stood
up before his looking-glass and parted his hair as carefully as if he had
been separating the saints of his congregation from the sinners, to send
the list to the statistical columns of a religious newspaper. He
selected a professional neckcloth, as spotlessly pure as if it had been
washed in innocency, and adjusted it in a tie which was like the white
rose of Sharon. Myrtle Hazard was, he thought, on the whole, the
handsomest girl he had ever seen; Susan Posey was to her as a buttercup
from the meadow is to a tiger-lily. He, knew the nature of the nervous
disturbances through which she had been passing, and that she must be in
a singularly impressible condition. He felt sure that he could establish
intimate spiritual relations with her by drawing out her repressed
sympathies, by feeding the fires of her religious imagination, by
exercising all those lesser arts of fascination which are so familiar to
the Don Giovannis, and not always unknown to the San Giovannis.

As for the hard doctrines which he used to produce sensations with in the
pulpit, it would have been a great pity to worry so lovely a girl, in
such a nervous state, with them. He remembered a savory text about being
made all things to all men, which would bear application particularly
well to the case of this young woman. He knew how to weaken his
divinity, on occasion, as well as an old housewife to weaken her tea,
lest it should keep people awake.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker was a man of emotions. He loved to feel his heart
beat; he loved all the forms of non-alcoholic drunkenness, which are so
much better than the vinous, because they taste themselves so keenly,
whereas the other (according to the statement of experts who are familiar
with its curious phenomena) has a certain sense of unreality connected
with it. He delighted in the reflex stimulus of the excitement he
produced in others by working on their feel