Mr. Gerrish stopped so abruptly that Putney, who was engaged in talk with
Colonel Marvin, looked up with a startled air, too late to secure the
floor. Mr. Peck recognised Mr. Gates, who stood with his wrists caught in
either hand across his middle, and looked round with a quizzical glance
before he began to speak. Putney lifted his hand in playful threatening
toward Colonel Marvin, who got away from him with a face of noiseless
laughter, and went and joined Mr. Wilmington where he sat with his wife,
who entered into the talk between the men.
"Mr. Moderator," said Gates, "I don't know as I expected to take part in
this debate; but you can't always tell what's going to happen to you, even
if you're only a member of the church by marriage, as you might say. I
presume, though, that I have a right to speak in a meeting like this,
because I _am_ a member of the society in my own right, and I've got
its interests at heart as much as any one. I don't know but what I got the
interests of Hatboro' at heart too, but I can't be certain; sometimes you
can't; sometimes you think you've got the common good in view, and you
come to look a little closer and you find it's the uncommon good; that is
to say, it's not so much the public weal you're after as what it is the
private weal. But that's neither here nor there. I haven't got anything to
say against identifying yourself with things in general; I don't know but
what it's a good way; all is, it's apt to make you think you're personally
attacked when nobody is meant in particular. _I_ think that's what's
partly the matter with Brother Gerrish here. I heard that sermon, and I
didn't suppose there was anything in it to hurt any one especially; and I
was consid'ably surprised to see that Mr. Gerrish seemed to take it to
himself, somehow, and worry over it; but I didn't really know just what the
trouble was till he explained here tonight. All I was thinking was when it
come to that about large commerce devouring the small--sort of lean and fat
kine--I wished Jordan and Marsh could hear that, or Stewart's in New York,
or Wanamaker's in Philadelphia. I never _thought_ of Brother Gerrish
once; and I don't presume one out of a hundred did either. I--" The
electric light immediately over Gates's head began to hiss and sputter,
and to suffer the sort of syncope which overtakes electric lights at such
times, and to leave the house in darkness. Gates waited, standing, till it
revived, and then added: "I guess I hain't got anything more to say, Mr.
Moderator. If I had it's gone from me now. I'm more used to speaking by
kerosene, and I always lose my breath when an electric light begins that
way."