A shrewd, exacting,
penny-for-penny and dollar-for-dollar business woman was concealed under
the mask of her good-natured face and air of motherly solicitude. Miss
Jamison, at the very start-out of her career, was inspired to call her
little "snide" boarding-house after the founder of the particular creed
professed by the congregation of the neighboring church. The result was
that "The Calvin" immediately became filled with homeless Presbyterians,
or the homeless friends and acquaintances of Presbyterians. They not
only filled her house, but they overflowed, and to preserve the overflow
Miss Jamison rented the adjoining house.

Miss Jamison was now a successful boarding-house keeper on a scale
large enough to have satisfied the aspirations of a less clever woman.
But she longed for other denominations to feed and house. Of the
assortment that offered themselves, she chose the Methodists next, and
soon had several flourishing houses running under the pious appellation
"Wesley," which name, memorialized in large black letters on a brass
sign, soon became a veritable magnet to board-seeking Methodism.

The third and last venture of the energetic lady, and the one from which
she was to derive her largest percentage of revenue, was the
establishment of the place of which I had so recently become an inmate.
Of all three of Miss Jamison's boarding-houses, this was the largest and
withal the cheapest and most democratic: in which characteristics it but
partook of the nature of the particular sort of church-going public it
wished to attract, which was none other than the heterodox element which
flocked in vast numbers to All People's church. The All People's edifice
was a big, unsightly brick building. It had been originally designed for
a roller-skating rink.

All People's, as the church was colloquially named, was one of the most
popular places of worship in the city. Every Sunday, both at morning and
evening services, the big rink was packed to the doors with people who
were attracted quite as much by the good music as they were by the
popular preaching of the very popular divine. A large percentage of this
great congregation was recruited from the transient element of
population which lives in lodgings and boarding-houses. From its
democracy and lack of all ceremony, it was a church which appealed
particularly to those who were without ties or affiliations. Into this
sanctuary the lonely young man (or girl) of a church-goi