“Yes,” assented the girl, breaking involuntarily into the queer little child-laugh that Vail loved. “I do, indeed. And I remember what he answered. He—” “If Mr. Case—” blustered the undeterred Mosely. “I’d forgotten that part of it,” purred Miss Gregg, ignoring Joshua Q. “I remember now. He said, in that stiff old-fashioned way of his:[84] ‘Madam, you exaggerate. Yet in all modesty I may venture to believe that if I had lived in Bible times, my unworthy name might have had the honor to be mentioned in that Book of Books. Lesser folk than myself were mentioned there by name. Fishermen and tanners and coppersmiths and the like.’” [84] “No?” exploded Vail. “Did Bacon really say that? The old windbag! And you let him get away with it, Miss Gregg? I should have thought—” “No,” replied the old lady, complacently. “I can’t say I really ‘let him get away with it.’ At least, not very far away. I’m afraid I even lost my gentle temper, and that for once in my life I was just a little rude. I said to him: ‘Why, Standish Bacon, you couldn’t have gotten your name in Holy Writ if you’d lived through every one of its books. You couldn’t even have gotten in by name if you’d broken up one of St. Paul’s most crowded meetings at Ephesus. The best mention you could have hoped to get for that would have been a verse, tucked away somewhere in the middle of a chapter, in the Epistle to the Ephesians. A verse like this: “And it came to pass in those days that a Certain Man[85] of Ephesus busted up the meeting!”’ Bacon didn’t like it very well. But he—” [85] Joshua Q. Mosely and his glaringly indignant wife had been shut out of the talk as skillfully as Miss Gregg’s ingenuity could devise. But mere ingenuity cannot forever hold its own against a bull-bellow voice. Now as the old lady still rambled on, Joshua Q. burst forth again: “Excuse me for speaking out of turn, as the feller said!” he declaimed. “But I want this Case person to know— Hey, there!” he broke off, in dismay. “What’s happenin’?” For again the substance of his diatribe was shattered. This time the needed and heaven-sent interruption did not come from Miss Gregg, but from Macduff and Petty. Thaxton, absent-mindedly, had tossed a fragment of trout to Macduff on the floor beside him. He had long
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