the going wageâyou told me so yourself. And now he does this.â
âSo would you,â I said, âin his place.â
âThatâs where youâre wrong,â Brother Lemon contradicted, so sharply that I never tried that approach again.
âAll these things are keeping me from my work,â he went on plaintively. âThatâs the worst of it. Iâve been in the country three weeks tomorrow, and I havenât begun services yet. Whatâs the home congregation going to think of me?â
Then he knotted his big hands in sudden and private anguish.
âNoââ he said slowly. âI shouldnât say that. It shouldnât matter to me. The question isâwhat is the Almighty going to think?â
âI expect Heâs learned to be patient,â I ventured.
But Brother Lemon hadnât even heard. He wore the fixed expression of a man beholding a vision.
âThatâs it,â he said finally. âNow I see why Iâve been feeling so let down and miserable. Itâs because Iâve been putting off the work of my mission. I had to look aroundâoh yes, see the sights, buy souvenirs. Even my worry about the servants, and the people who live so poor and all. I let these things distract me from my true work.â
He stood up, there in his dollâs house, an alabaster giant.
âMy business,â he said, âis with the salvation of their immortal souls. That, and that alone. Itâs the greatest kindness I can do these people.â
After that day, he was busy as a nesting bird. I met him one morning in the Post Office, where he was collecting packages of Bibles. He shook my hand in that casually formal way of his.
âI reckon to start services within a week,â he said. âIâve rented an empty lot, temporarily, and Iâm having a shelter put up.â
âYou certainly havenât wasted any time recently.â
âThere isnât any time to waste,â Brother Lemonâs bell voice tolled. âLater may be too late.â
âYou canât carry all that lot very far,â I said. âCan I give you a lift?â
âThatâs very friendly of you, Mr. Kettridge, but Iâm happy to say Iâve got my new car at last. Like to see it?â
Outside, a dozen street urchins rushed up, and Brother Lemon allowed several of them to carry his parcels on their heads. We reached the appointed place, and the little boys, tattered and dusty as fallen leaves, lively as clickety-winged cockroaches, began to caper and jabber.
âMastahâI beg youâyou go dash me!â
A âdashâ of a few pennies was certainly in order. But Brother Lemon gave them five shillings apiece. They fled before he could change his mind. I couldnât help commenting wryly on the sum, but his eyes never wavered.
âYou have to get known somehow,â Brother Lemon said. âLots of churches advertise nowadays.â
He rode off, then, in his new two-toned orchid Buick.
Brother Lemon must have been lonely. He knew no other Europeans, and one evening he dropped in, uninvited, to my house.
âIâve never explained our teaching to you, Mr. Kettridge,â he said, fixing me with his blue-polished eyes. âI donât know, mind you, what your views on religion are, or how you look at salvationââ
He was so pathetically eager to preach that I told him to go ahead. He plunged into his spiel like the proverbial hart into cooling streams. He spoke of the seven golden candlesticks, which were the seven churches of Asia, and the seven starsâthe seven angels of the churches. The seven lamps of fire, the heavenly book sealed with seven seals, the seven-horned Lamb which stood as it had been slain.
I had not read Revelation in years, but its weird splendour came back to me as I listened to him. Man, however, is many-eyed as the beasts around that jewelled throne. Brother Lemon