him at the corner. "Awful
sorry to hear about the row you'n the minister are gettin' into," he
remarked sympathetically, as he crawled into the store, and pulled his
poor, half-frozen limbs up to the stove.

Mr. Watson turned sharply from the contemplation of the pound of butter
Mrs. Watson had cautioned him to bring home, and stared at the speaker.

"What on earth do you mean?" he inquired incredulously.

"Why, didn't you hear?" Coonie's tone was a master-piece of pained
amazement. "Why, old Middleton's kickin' like a steer about this
patriotic concert you're gettin' up. Says he bets it's another
Mackenzie business all over, and he'll have the law if it ain't
stopped. An' Splinterin' Andra says that a minister o' the Gospel
who----"

"Oh, go along, Coonie!" cried the other, much relieved. "You're surely
old enough to know that Mr. Egerton's got more sense than to pay
attention to anything quite so pre-historic as Splinterin' Andra! And
as for old Mark," he continued impressively, "you can tell him, from
me, that if there'd been a few more concerts like this long ago,
William Lyon Mackenzie couldn't have raised a rebellion and wouldn't
have wanted to if he could."

Coonie shook his head doubtfully. "'Fraid it would only make trouble.
Mark says it's all danged nonsense. Awful language that old man uses!"
He sighed piously, and, lighting his pipe, proceeded to make himself
comfortable.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," he continued seriously, putting his
feet on the top of the stove and expectorating into the open damper at
a perilous distance, "I'll tell you one thing. This here dispenser o'
religion you've got in this town tries to run too many shows at once.
He's tryin' to keep the Gospel trade hummin' an' have his eye on all
the fun that's goin' at the same time. I ain't up in the religion
business myself; there ain't likely to be any wings sproutin' 'round
where I'm at, but I can tell a minister from an alligator seven days in
the week, an' without specs, too, an' the first time I laid eyes on
that chap you've got now, I knew he wasn't the sort that made folks hop
along to Heaven any faster than they wanted to go."

"You certainly ought to be a competent judge of a minister's duty,
Coonie," replied the schoolmaster sarcastically.

Mr. Basketful paused in the operation of weighing the butter.
"Coonie's right," he said, with conviction. "Mr. Egerton can preach,
but 'e's not wot I call spiritually