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Anderson sat down heavily.

“My sakes, Harry,–I–I–why, this is turrible! My wife drunk, an’–an’–Mrs. Jones, an’ Mrs. Nixon, an’–“

“Yes, sir,” said Harry heartlessly; “they probably are lit up like the sunny side of the moon, and what’s more, my friend, if they do take it into their poor, beaddled heads to go out and paint the town, there won’t be any stopping ’em. Hold on! Didn’t you hear what I said about the case in hand? You take her home, do you hear?”

“But–how am I to get her home? I–I can’t carry her through the streets,” groaned the harassed marshal.

“Hire an automobile, or a delivery-wagon, or–what say?”

“I was just sayin’ that maybe I could get Lem Hawkins to loan me his hearse.”

Mr. Squires put his hand over his mouth and looked away. When he turned back to the unhappy official, his voice was gentler.

“You leave her to me, old fellow. I’ll take care of her. She can stay here till after dark and I’ll see that she gets home all right.”

“By gosh, Harry, you’re a real friend. I–I won’t ferget this,–no, sir, never!”

“What are you going to do first?”

“I’m goin’ to get my wife out of that den of iniquity and take her home!” said Anderson resolutely.

“Whether she’s willing,–or not?”

“Don’t you worry. I got that all thought out. If she won’t let me take her home, I’ll let on as if I’m full and then she’ll insist on takin’ me home.”

With that he was gone.

The crowd in front of the Banner office now numbered at least a hundred. Mr. Crow stopped at the top of the steps and swiftly ran his eye over the excited throng. He was thinking hard and quite rapidly–for him. All the while the crowd was shouting questions at him, he was deliberately counting noses. Suddenly he held up his hand. There was instant, expectant silence.

“All husbands who possess wives in the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society kindly step forward. Make way there, you people,–let ’em through. This way, Newt,–an’ you, Alf,–come on, Elmer K.,–I said ‘wives,’ Mrs. Fry, not husbands. All husbands please congregate in the alley back of the Banner office an’ wait fer instructions. Don’t ask questions. Just do as I tell you. Hey, you kids! Run over an’ tell Mort Fryback an’ Ed Higgins an’ Situate M. Jones I want ’em right away,–an’ George Brubaker. Tell him to lock up his store if he has to, but to come at once. Now, you women keep back! This is fer men only.”

In due time a troubled, anxious group of men sallied forth from the alley back of the Banner office, and, headed by Anderson Crow, marched resolutely down Sickle Street to Maple and advanced upon the house of Deacon Rank.

The song service was in full blast. The men stopped at the bottom of the yard and listened with sinking hearts.

“That’s my wife,” said Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer, a bleak look in his eyes. “She knows that tune by heart.”

“Which tune?” asked Mort Fryback, cocking his ear.

“Why, the one she’s singin’,” said Elmer. “Now listen,–it goes this way.” He hummed a few bars of ‘The Rosary.’ “Don’t you get it? There! Why, you must be deef. I can’t hear anything else.”

“The only one I can make out is ‘Tipperary.’ Is that the one she’s singin’?”

“Certainly not. I said it goes this way. That’s somebody else you hear, Mort.”

“Hear that?” cried Ed Higgins excitedly. “That’s ‘Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt!’ My wife’s favourite. My Lord, Anderson, what’s to be done?”

“Keep still!” ordered Anderson. “I’m tryin’ to see if I c’n make out my wife’s singin’!”

“Well, we got to do somethin’,” groaned Newt Spratt, whose wife was organist in the Pond Road Church. “She’ll bust that piano all to smash if she keeps on like that.”

“Come on, gentlemen,” said Anderson, compressing his lips. “Remember now, every man selects his own wife. Every–“

“Wait a minute, Anderson,” pleaded George Brubacker. “It’ll take more than me to manage my wife if she gets stubborn.”