Mr Newman turned in his seat with his neighbors and saw the priest. The man was built like an athlete and was striding up the aisle in the direction of the stage. Flanking him were two men in shirtsleeves who looked like brothers. They had the identical frown of watchfulness on their faces. Behind them marched half a dozen other men, rapidly, as though they were bringing some sort of dispatch to the assembly. The crowd was leaning, waving, everybody telling his neighbor what his neighbor was trying to tell him – that this was the priest from Boston, that this was the important priest from Boston.’ Father!’ He kept laughing and saluting people all over the hall. He had a very thick neck that was hard to turn. Reaching the steps of the stage he bounded up two at a time and started shaking hands with the people seated there behind the thin podium. The men who had come in with him took seemingly prearranged places at the extreme edges of the stage, and although there were chairs for them they preferred to stand facing the audience. Mr Newman forgot the priest for a moment and watched these men. He could not get over the fact that they were all scanning the audience and frowning. Who were they looking for? He could not quell his growing uneasiness. He had a job that would last, what was he doing here? But looking at the sharp, excited eyes around him, he remembered the burly youths shaking out the garbage on his lawn and finally felt wise at having come tonight. It was definitely a wise thing for him to be doing. But this heat …

Silence. The silence of a stopped wind held the audience. The priest had suddenly turned from a man with whom he had been speaking and stepped up to the podium. His smile was gone. His broad jaw, shaven to a shine, set itself in his heavy head. He had no notes and simply rested his arms upon the podium and slowly, ever so slowly, moved his eyes across the faces before him. For moments the silence held. A situation seemed to have formed. Already something seemed to have happened and this man in black had stepped forward to destroy the situation. The crowd leaned toward him mentally as toward a street accident. Mr Newman forgot all his calculations. His mouth had fallen open a little. He forgot to blink his eyes. He was breathing quietly.

‘I need no introduction,’ snapped the priest. It was as though he were continuing a speech instead of beginning one, his tone was so startling and fiery. It seemed he was already angry and Mr Newman wondered why.

The priest, after this pronouncement, appeared to turn his eyes toward each listener individually. He rolled his gaze around all the far peripheries of the crowd and seemed to gather them toward him. Then he smiled, modestly, intimately, and picked at the wooden podium.