Except for the wild look in them, which was not so much wilder than they
wore in all times of excitement, and an occasional halt at a difficult
word, he gave no sign of being drunk. The liquor had as yet merely
intensified him.
Mrs. Munger had the inspiration to treat him as one caresses a dangerous
lunatic. "I'm sure you're very kind, Mr. Putney, to come back. Do sit
down!"
"Why?" demanded Putney. "Everybody else standing."
"That's true," said Mrs. Munger. "I'm sure I don't know why--"
"Oh yes, you do, Mrs. Munger. It's because they want to have a good view of
a man who's made a fool of himself--"
"Oh, now, Mr. _Putney_!" said Mrs. Munger, with hospitable
deprecation. "I'm sure no one wants to do anything of the kind." She looked
round at the company for corroboration, but no one cared to attract
Putney's attention by any sound or sign.
"But I'll tell you what," said Putney, with a savage burst, "that a woman
who puts hell-fire before a poor devil who can't keep out of it when he
sees it, is better worth looking at."
"Mr. Putney, I assure you," said Mrs. Munger, "that it was the
_mildest_ punch! And I really didn't think--I didn't remember--"
She turned toward Mrs. Putney with her explanation, but Putney seemed to
have forgotten her, and he turned upon Mr. Gerrish, "How's that drunkard's
grave getting along that you've dug for your porter?" Gerrish remained
prudently silent. "I know you, Billy. You're all right. You've got the pull
on your conscience; we all have, one way or another. Here's Annie Kilburn,
come back from Rome, where she couldn't seem to fix it up with hers to suit
her, and she's trying to get round it in Hatboro' with good works. Why,
there isn't any occasion for good works in Hatboro'. I could have told you
that before you came," he said, addressing Annie directly. "What we want is
faith, and lots of it. The church is going to pieces because we haven't got
any faith."
His hand slipped from the piano, and he dropped heavily back upon a chair
that stood near. The concussion seemed to complete in his brain the
transition from his normal dispositions to their opposite, which had
already begun. "Bill Gerrish has done more for Hatboro' than any other man
in the place. He's the only man that holds the church together, because he
knows the value of _faith_." He said this without a trace of irony,
glaring at Annie with fierce defiance. "You come back here, and try to set
up for a saint in a town where William B. Gerrish has done--has done more
to establish the dry-goods business on a metro-me-tro-politan basis than
any other man out of New York or Boston."