wanted to Win them
and make everybody believe he was a Nobby and Boss Minister he would
have to hand out a little Guff. He fixed it up Good and Plenty.

On the following Sunday Morning he got up in the Lookout and read a
Text that didn't mean anything, read from either Direction, and then he
sized up his Flock with a Dreamy Eye and said: "We can not more
adequately voice the Poetry and Mysticism of our Text than in those
familiar Lines of the great Icelandic Poet, Ikon Navrojk:

"To hold is not to have--
Under the seared Firmament,
Where Chaos sweeps, and Vast Futurity
Sneers at these puny Aspirations--
There is the full Reprisal."

When the Preacher concluded this Extract from the Well-Known Icelandic
Poet he paused and looked downward, breathing heavily through his Nose,
like Camille in the Third Act.

A Stout Woman in the Front Row put on her Eye-Glasses and leaned
forward so as not to miss Anything. A Venerable Harness Dealer over at
the Right nodded his Head solemnly. He seemed to recognize the
Quotation. Members of the Congregation glanced at one another as if to
say: "This is certainly Hot Stuff!"

The Preacher wiped his Brow and said he had no Doubt that every one
within the Sound of his Voice remembered what Quarolius had said,
following the same Line of Thought. It was Quarolius who disputed the
Contention of the great Persian Theologian Ramtazuk, that the Soul in
its reaching out after the Unknowable was guided by the Spiritual
Genesis of Motive rather than by mere Impulse of Mentality. The
Preacher didn't know what all This meant, and he didn't care, but you
can rest easy that the Pew-Holders were On in a minute. He talked it
off in just the Way that Cyrano talks when he gets Roxane so Dizzy that
she nearly falls off the Piazza.

The Parishioners bit their Lower Lips and hungered for more First-Class
Language. They had paid their Money for Tall Talk and were prepared to
solve any and all styles of Delivery. They held on to the Cushions and
seemed to be having a Nice Time.

The Preacher quoted copiously from the Great Poet Amebius. He recited
18 lines of Greek and then said: "How true this is!" And not a
Parishioner batted an Eye.

It was Amebius whose Immortal Lines he recited in order to prove the
Extreme Error of the Position assumed in the Controversy by the Famous
Italian, Polenta.

He had them Going, and there wasn't a Thing to it. When he would get
tired of faking