Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/360

 Hambright. They authorised him to make an amazing offer of salary, if that would be any inducement, and they felt sure it would.

When the Deacon reached Hambright and saw its poverty and general air of unimportance he felt encouraged.

"A man of such power stay a lifetime in this little hole! Impossible!" he exclaimed under his breath, when he looked out of the bus along the wide deserted looking streets with a straggling cottage here and there on either side.

He stopped at the same hotel with the Preacher and became his shadow for a week. He was seated with him under the oak in the square, threshing over his argument for the hundredth time, in the most good-natured, but everlastingly persistent way.

"Doctor, it's perfect nonsense for a man of your magnificent talents, of your culture and power over an audience, to think of living always in a little village like this!"

"No, deacon, my work is here for the South."

"But, my dear man, in Boston, it would be for the whole nation, North and South. I'll tell you what we will do. Say you will come, and we will make your salary eight thousand a year. That's the largest salary ever offered a Baptist preacher in America. You will pack our church with people, give us new life, and we can afford it. You will be a power in Boston, and a power in the world."

The Preacher smiled and was silent. At length he said,

"I appreciate your offer, deacon. You pay me the highest compliment you know how to express. But you prosperous Yankees can't get into your heads the idea that there are many things which money can't measure."

"But we know a good thing when we see it, and we go for it!" interrupted the deacon.