e normal smell of the place is
rather less unpleasant than that of most other halls, for on the one day
when it is regularly crowded practically all of the persons gathered
together have been very recently bathed.

On this fine morning, however, it is full of heavy, mortuary perfumes,
for a couple of florist's men have just finished decorating the chancel
with flowers and potted palms. Just behind the chancel rail, facing the
center aisle, there is a prie-dieu, and to either side of it are great
banks of lilies, carnations, gardenias and roses. Three or four feet
behind the prie-dieu and completely concealing the high altar, there is
a dense jungle of palms. Those in the front rank are authentically
growing in pots, but behind them the florist's men have artfully placed
some more durable, and hence more profitable, sophistications. Anon the
rev. clergyman, emerging from the vestry-room to the right, will pass
along the front of this jungle to the prie-dieu, and so, framed in
flowers, face the congregation with his saponaceous smile.

The florist's men, having completed their labors, are preparing to
depart. The older of the two, a man in the fifties, shows the ease of an
experienced hand by taking out a large plug of tobacco and gnawing off a
substantial chew. The desire to spit seizing him shortly, he proceeds to
gratify it by a trick long practised by gasfitters, musicians, caterer's
helpers, piano movers and other such alien invaders of the domestic
hearth. That is to say, he hunts for a place where the carpet is loose
along the chancel rail, finds it where two lengths join, deftly turns up
a flap, spits upon the bare floor, and then lets the flap fall back,
finally giving it a pat with the sole of his foot. This done, he and his
assistant leave the church to the sexton, who has been sweeping the
vestibule, and, after passing the time of day with the two men who are
putting up a striped awning from the door to the curb, disappear into a
nearby speak-easy, there to wait and refresh themselves until the
wedding is over, and it is time to take away their lilies, their
carnations and their synthetic palms.

It is now a quarter past eleven, and two flappers of the neighborhood,
giggling and arm-in-arm, approach the sexton and inquire of him if they
may enter. He asks them if they have tickets and when they say they
haven't, he tells them that he ain't got no right to let them in, and
don't know nothing about what the ru