es. The Army came along at the usual time, but we didn't
see the Pretty Girl at first--she was a bit late. Mitchell said he liked
to be at Watty's when the Army prayed and the Pretty Girl was there;
he had no objection to being prayed for by a girl like that, though he
reckoned that nothing short of a real angel could save him now. He said
his old grandmother used to pray for him every night of her life and
three times on Sunday, with Christmas Day extra when Christmas Day
didn't fall on a Sunday; but Mitchell reckoned that the old lady
couldn't have had much influence because he became more sinful every
year, and went deeper in ways of darkness, until finally he embarked on
a career of crime.

The Army prayed, and then a thin "ratty" little woman bobbed up in
the ring; she'd gone mad on religion as women do on woman's rights and
hundreds of other things. She was so skinny in the face, her jaws so
prominent, and her mouth so wide, that when she opened it to speak it
was like a ventriloquist's dummy and you could almost see the cracks
open down under her ears.

"They say I'm cracked!" she screamed in a shrill, cracked voice. "But
I'm not cracked--I'm only cracked on the Lord Jesus Christ! That's all
I'm cracked on----." And just then the Amen man of the Army--the Army
groaner we called him, who was always putting both feet in it--just then
he blundered forward, rolled up his eyes, threw his hands up and down as
if he were bouncing two balls, and said, with deep feeling:

"Thank the Lord she's got a crack in the right place!"

Tom Hall doubled up, and most of the other sinners seemed to think there
was something very funny about it. And the Army, too, seemed struck with
an idea that there was something wrong somewhere, for they started a
hymn.

A big American negro, who'd been a night watchman in Sydney, stepped
into the ring and waved his arms and kept time, and as he got excited he
moved his hands up and down rapidly, as if he was hauling down a rope
in a great hurry through a pulley block above, and he kept saying, "Come
down, Lord!" all through the hymn, like a bass accompaniment, "Come
down, Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord!" and the
quicker be said it the faster he hauled. He was as good as a drum. And,
when the hymn was over, he started to testify.

"My frens!" he said, "I was once black as der coals in der mined! I was
once black as der ink in der ocean of sin! But now--thank an' bless