king in with
uninitiated eyes, as he had done, now seemed more and more a crime.

There was an "Opening Ode," which was so badly sung as to mitigate the
awe; and an "order of business" solemnly gone through. Under the head
"Good of the Order" the visiting brethren spoke as if it were a
class-meeting and they giving "testimony," one of them very volubly
reminding the assembly of the great principles of the order, and the
mighty work it had already accomplished in ameliorating the condition of
a lost and wandering world. Amidon felt that he must have been very
blind in failing to note this work until it was thus forced on his
notice; but he made a mental apology.

"By the way, Brassfield," said Mr. Slater during a recess preceding the
initiation of candidates, "you want to give Stevens the best you've got
in the Catacombs scene. Will you make it just straight ritual, or throw
in some of those specialities of yours?"

"Stevens! Catacombs!" gasped Amidon, "specialties! I--"

"I wish you could have been here when I was put through," went on Mr.
Slater. "I don't see how any one but a professional actor, or a person
with your dramatic gifts, can do that part at all--it's so sort of
ripping and--and intense, you know. I look forward to your rendition of
it with a good deal of pleasurable anticipation."

"You don't expect me to do it, do you?" asked Amidon.

"Why, who else?" was the counter-question. "We can't be expected to play
on the bench the best man in Pennsylvania in that part, can we?"

"Come, Brassfield," said the Sovereign Pontiff, "get on your regalia for
the Catacombs. We are about to begin."

"Oh, say, now!" said Amidon, trying to be off-hand about it, "you must
get somebody else."

"What's that! Some one else? Very likely we shall! Very likely!" thus
the Sovereign Pontiff with fine scorn. "Come, the regalia, and no
nonsense!"

"I--I may be called out at any moment," urged Amidon, amidst an outcry
that seemed to indicate a breach with the Martyrs then and there. "There
are reasons why--"

Edgington took him aside. "Is there any truth in this story," said he,
"that you have had some trouble with Stevens, and discharged him?"

"Oh, that Stevens!" gasped Amidon, as if the whole discussion had hinged
on picking out the right one among an army of Stevenses. "Yes, it's
true, and I can't help confer this--"

Edgington whispered to the Sovereign Pontiff; and the announcement was
made that in the Catacombs sc