"You whited sepulchre!" he bellowed, with a final shake, and cast
Whiskers-on-the-moon from him with a vigour which impelled that unhappy
pacifist to the very verge of the choir entrance door. Mr. Pryor's once
ruddy face was ashen. But he turned at bay. "I'll have the law on you
for this," he gasped.
"Do--do," roared Norman, making another rush. But Mr. Pryor was gone.
He had no desire to fall a second time into the hands of an avenging
militarist. Norman turned to the platform for one graceless, triumphant
moment.
"Don't look so flabbergasted, parsons," he boomed. "You couldn't do it--
nobody would expect it of the cloth--but somebody had to do it. You
know you're glad I threw him out--he couldn't be let go on yammering
and yodelling and yawping sedition and treason. Sedition and treason--
somebody had to deal with it. I was born for this hour--I've had my
innings in church at last. I can sit quiet for another sixty years now!
Go ahead with your meeting, parsons. I reckon you won't be troubled with
any more pacifist prayers."
But the spirit of devotion and reverence had fled. Both ministers
realized it and realized that the only thing to do was to close the
meeting quietly and let the excited people go. Mr. Meredith addressed a
few earnest words to the boys in khaki--which probably saved Mr.
Pryor's windows from a second onslaught--and Mr. Arnold pronounced an
incongruous benediction, at least he felt it was incongruous, for he
could not at once banish from his memory the sight of gigantic Norman
Douglas shaking the fat, pompous little Whiskers-on-the-moon as a huge
mastiff might shake an overgrown puppy.
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