The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Minister's Great Opportunity, by
Heman White Chaplin

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Title: The New Minister's Great Opportunity
First published in the "Century Magazine"

Author: Heman White Chaplin

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23003]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINISTER'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY ***

Produced by David Widger

THE NEW MINISTER'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY.

By Heman White Chaplin

1887

First published in the "Century Magazine."

"The minister's got a job," said Mr. Snell.

Mr. Snell had been driven in by a shower from the painting of a barn,
and was now sitting, with one bedaubed overall leg crossed over the
other, in Mr. Hamblin's shop.

Half-a-dozen other men, who had likewise found in the rain a call to
leisure, looked up at him inquiringly.

"How do you mean?" said Mr. Noyes, who sat beside him, girt with a
nail-pocket. "'The minister 's got a job'? How do you mean?" And Mr.
Noyes assumed a listener's air, and stroked his thin yellow beard.

Mr. Snell smiled, with half-shut, knowing eyes, but made no answer.

"How do you mean?" repeated Mr. Noyes; "'The minister's got a job'--of
course he has--got a stiddy job. We knew that before."

"Very well," said Mr. Snell, with a placid face; "seeing's you know so
much about it, enough said. Let it rest right there."

"But," said Mr. Noyes, nervously blowing his nose; "you lay down this
proposition: 'The minister's got a job.' Now I ask, what is it?"

Mr. Snell uncrossed his legs, and stooped to pick up a last, which he
proceeded to scan with a shrewd, critical eye.

"Narrer foot," he said to Mr. Hamblin.

"Private last--Dr. Hunter's," said Mr. Hamblin, laying down a boot upon
which he was stitching an outer-sole, and rising to make a ponderous,
elephantine excursion across the quaking shop to the earthen
water-pitcher, from which he took a generous draught.

"Well, Brother Snell," said Mr. Noyes,--they were members together of a
secret organization, of which Mr. Snell was P. G. W. T. F.,--"ain't you
going to tell us? What--is this job? That is to say, what--er--is it?"

Brother Snell set