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 Van Meter pursed his lips and tried to lift his nose into a sneer.

"May I ask, Doctor, if it is your intention to demand a vote to-night on this building scheme?"

"It is."

"Then I suggest that we vote first and hear your speech afterward. Some of us may wish to go before you're done."

Gordon turned red with rage and started to sit down, but, wheeling, he again faced the chairman and glared at him.

"Pardon my business methods, Doctor," he went on, "but your visions are rather tiresome. We are old New Yorkers. We know what you are going to tell us of the dark problem of the city's corruption, the poverty of the poor, and so on. Every now and then we see such sacred fires burning in the heart of a country parson called to town. Yet, in spite of the splendour of these little fizzling pinwheels that light the cruelty and darkness of metropolitan life for a moment, New York has managed somehow to jog along."

Gordon's anger melted into a laugh as he watched the Deacon's face grow purple with fury as he fairly hissed the last sentence of his speech. He was not an impressive man in an attempted flight of eloquence, and the preacher's laughter quite unhorsed him.

"Gentlemen," Gordon said with quiet dignity, "I came here to-night to make an appeal. But, I'm