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"Oh, Gawd!" protested Elmer. "Eddie Fislinger! About the kind of burg he would land in! A lot he knows about the meaning of redemption or any other dogma, that human woodchuck! Or about dancing! If he'd ever been with me in Denver and shaken a hoof at Billy Portifero's place, he'd have something to hand out. Fislinger—must be the same guy. I'll sit down front and put his show on the fritz!"

Eddie Fislinger's church was an octagonal affair, with the pulpit in one angle, an arrangement which produced a fascinating, rather dizzy effect, reminiscent of the doctrine of predestination. The interior was of bright yellow, hung with many placards: "Get Right with God," and "Where Will You Spend Eternity?" and "The Wisdom of This World is Foolishness with God." The Sunday School Register behind the pulpit communicated the tidings that the attendance today had been forty-one, as against only thirty-nine last week, and the collection eighty-nine cents, as against only seventy-seven.

The usher, a brick-layer in a clean collar, was impressed by Elmer's checked suit and starched red-speckled shirt and took him to the front row.

Eddie flushed most satisfactorily when he saw Elmer from the pulpit, started to bow, checked it, looked in the general direction of Heaven, and tried to smile condescendingly. He was nervous at the beginning of his sermon, but apparently he determined that his attack on sin—which hitherto had been an academic routine with no relation to any of his appallingly virtuous flock—might be made real. With his squirrel-toothed and touching earnestness he looked down at Elmer and as good as told him to go to hell and be done with it. But he thought better of it, and concluded that God might be able to give even Elmer Gantry another chance if Elmer stopped drinking, smoking, blaspheming, and wearing checked suits. (If he did not refer to Elmer by name, he certainly did by poisonous glances.)

Elmer was angry, then impressively innocent, then bored.