"I was never so put out in my life. Here was this man, a minister of the Gospel, and a Presiding Elder, who had just deliberately delegated me to make a previous engagement for him without regard to morals—and with the girl I loved. I don't think he knew I was paying her court, but the moral was the same.

"I was outdone! But true to his words, the next Sunday night he was back!

"'Well, Speed,' he said when the services were over. 'What's the rip? Everything O.K.?' He was very anxious, and I'll never forget his face. But, I was afraid of the old rascal, still I hadn't lost my manhood at that. So I says:

"'Now, Reverend, you place me in a very awkward predicament. To begin with, I have the highest respect for those young ladies. And, again, even if I did not, I could not be expected to cohort as you suggested.'

"'Aw, Speed,' he cut in. 'You're no good. Pshaw! I just know the older of those two girls is not straight—am positive of it. And you could fix things if you would,' and I detected a touch of angry disappointment in his tone.

"Well, to get out of it, I told the old rascal what I thought of his suggestion and left him. I never saw him again until near conference, and then not to speak with him. I was confident that I had satisfied the people, and that I would be sent back without any argument.

"So imagine when I went to conference and when the charges were being read off and I heard the Secretary call 'Reverend Speed to Mitchfield!' instead of the town from which I had gone.

"I was just sick, man; so sick until I almost dropped dead on the floor! Oh, the agony it gave me! I finally got outside some way, and stood leaning against the church. How long I stood thus, I never knew; but the church let out by and by, while I still stood there—and let me explain. Mitchfield was a charge that contained exactly a dozen members—the Reverend McCarthy came out and I looked up straight into his eyes.... I knew then why I had been sent to Mitchfield instead of back to the charge I had been at.

"Well, I went to Mitchfield, and by working around town by the day, in connection with the charge, I managed to make it. Some months later, I married the girl I have spoken of, and we began to keep house in Mitchfield.

"It was pretty hard, and sometimes I don't wonder at what later happened. But to make a long story short, I was compelled to get work in a near-by town to make a living for me and my wife, and was gone all the week until Saturday night. At the end of six months, Reverend McCarthy had taken my wife, and she had left me and was living in St. Louis!"