"The little lads!" Mr. Kinosling smiled. "They have their games, their outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The sun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn fair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round in the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take shape, form, outline.
Let them."
"Mr. Kinosling!" Another spinster--undeterred by what had happened to Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. "Mr. Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you."
"My dear Miss Cosslit," Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand and watching it, "I am entirely at your disposal."
"WAS Joan of Arc," she asked fervently, "inspired by spirits?"
He smiled indulgently. "Yes--and no," he said. "One must give both answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no."
"Oh, THANK you!" said Miss Cosslit, blushing.
"She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know."
"And I have a question, too," urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment's hasty concentration. "'I've never been able to settle it for myself, but NOW----"
"Yes?" said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly.
"Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language than Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?"
"It depends upon the student," replied the oracle smiling.
"One must not look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case--if one may cite one's self as an example--I found no great, no insurmountable difficulty in mastering, in conquering either."
"And may _I_ ask one?" ventured Mrs. Bassett. "Do you think it is right to wear egrets?"
"There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction," Mr. Kinosling began, "which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps regulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably implies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances is accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it descends from father to son, and if there is one thing more true than `Like father, like son,' it is--" he bowed gallantly to Mrs. Bassett--"it is, `Like mother, like son.' What these good ladies have said this afternoon of YOUR----"
This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with protest and protracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned and disinfected curse with a big H.
With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and threw open the blinds.
Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party.
He was endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a point above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching him earnestly--Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on the question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that Georgie had just replied.
"That's right, Georgie," said Penrod encouragingly. "They can, too, hear you. Let her go!"
"Going to heaven!" shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. "Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!"
His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood petrified in a cluster about the window.
"Going to heaven!" Georgie bellowed. "Going to heaven!
Going to heaven, my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!"
He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his knickerbockers and his waistband severed relations.
"Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!" he announced appropriately. Then he began to slide.
He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground.
"Going to hell!" shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm in this great climax. "Going to hell! Going to hell!
I'm gone to hell, hell, hell!"
With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained.
Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was demanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front door. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided with him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised to be a family scene of unusual painfulness.
Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, shook him viciously.
"You horrible boy!" exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. "You ruffianly creature! Do you know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize what you're going to BE!"
With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He shouted the reply:
"A minister!"
