oh, Lord! And here was
Katherine Browne,--best maid, you know,--I mean maid of honour. Standin'
just like this, d'you see? And then right in front here was the preacher.
Say, where do all these preachers come from? I've never seen that feller
in all my life, and still they say he's an old friend of the family. Fine
business for a preacher to be in, wasn't it? Fi-ine bus-i-ness! He ought
to have been ashamed of himself. By Gosh, come to think of it, I believe
he was worse than I. He might have got out of it if he'd tried. He looked
like a regular man, and I'm nothing but a fish-worm."

"Not so loud, George, for heaven's sake. You don't want all these men in
here to--"

"Right you are, Simmy, right you are. I'm one of the fellers that talks
louder than anybody else and thinks he's as big as George Washington
because he's got a bass voice." He lowered his voice to a hoarse, raucous
whisper and went on. "And mother stood over there, see,--right about where
that cuspidor is,--and looked at the preacher all the time. Watchin' to see
that he kept his face straight, I suppose. Couple of old rummies standin'
back there where that table is, all dressed up in Prince Alberts and
shaved within an inch of their lives. Lawyers, I heard afterwards. Old
Mrs. Browne and Doc. Bates stood just behind me. Now you have it, just as
it was. Curtains all down and electric lights going full blast. It
wouldn't have been so bad if the lights had been out. Couldn't have seen
old Tempy, for one thing, and Anne's face for another. I'll never forget
Anne's face." His own face was now as white as chalk and convulsed with
genuine emotion.

Simmy was troubled. There was that about George Tresslyn that suggested a
subsequent catastrophe. He was in no mood to be left to himself. There was
the despairing look of the man who kills in his eyes, but who kills only
himself.

"See here, George, let's drop it now. Don't go on like this. Come along,
do. Come to my rooms and I'll make you comfortable for the--"

But George was not through with his account of the wedding. He
straightened up and, gritting his teeth, went on with the story. "Then
there were the responses, Simmy,--the same that we had, Lutie and I,--just
the same, only they sounded queer and awful and strange to-day. Only young
people ought to get married, Simmy. It doesn't seem so rotten when young
people lie like that to each other. Before I really knew what had happened
the preacher had pronoun