Jonesville factory I mustn't make 'em mad, and they pay a dretful high
rent."

"I wouldn't call it rent," sez I, "I'd call it blood-money. I'd run a
pirate flag up on the ruff with these words on it, 'Josiah Allen,
Deacon.'"

He wuz agitated and sez, "Oh, no, Samantha; I wouldn't do that for the
world, I am so well thought on in the M. E. meetin' house."

"Well, you won't be well thought on if you do such a thing as this!"
sez I. "Jest think how Ernest White, that good devoted minister, has
labored and prayed for the good of souls and bodies, and you tryin'
your best to overthrow it all. How could you do it, Josiah?"

"Well, I may as well tell you, Samantha, I writ to Ury and kinder left
it to him. He knows my ambitions and my biziness. He knows how handy
money is, and he fixed it all straight and right."

"Ury!" sez I, "why should you leave it to Ury? Does he keep your
conscience and clean it off when it gits black and nasty by such
doin's as this?"

"No, Samantha, I've got my conscience all right. I brought it with me
on my tower."

"Why should you leave it to Ury? He's your hired man, he would do as
you told him to," sez I. "For a Methodist deacon such acts are
demeanin' and disgustin' for a pardner and Jonesville to witness, let
alone the country." And agin I sez, "You can stop it in a minute if
you want to, and you know right from wrong, you know enough to say
yes or no without bringin' Ury into the scrape; Ury! spozein' you git
him into it, I can tell you he won't bear the brunt of it before the
bar of this country or that bar up above. You'll have to carry the
responsibility of all the evil it duz, and it will be a lastin'
disgrace to you and the hull Methodist meetin-house if you let it go
on."

Agin he sez, "Ury fixed it all right."

"How did Ury fix it?" sez I, in the cold axents of woman's skorn and
curiosity.

"Well, Ury said, make Bardeen stop sellin' whiskey out of the
cupboard, make him sell it out of the chist. There is a big chist
there that Bardeen bought to keep grain in, sez Ury; let Bardeen move
that cupboard acrost the room back into Jonesville, set the chist up
on the sink in Zoar and sell it out of that. Ury said that in his
opinion that would make it all right, so that a perfessor and a
Methodist deacon could do it with a clear conscience."

Sez I, "Do you write to once, Josiah Allen, and tell Bardeen to either
stop such works, or move right out."

"Well," sez he blandly, real b