"
"Certainly!" replied the vestry. "If this thing is to be in your house
you ought to have everything to say about it."
"I ask for control," said Peters, "not because I am fond of power, but
because experience has taught me that somebody should control affairs of
this sort."
"Certainly," was the reply again, and Peters was made a committee of
one, with power to run the sale in his own way, and the vestry settled
down in that calm and contented frame of mind which goes with the
consciousness of solvency.
Three months elapsed, and nothing was done. No cards were issued from
the home of Peters announcing a sale of any kind, cake, cream, or books,
and the literary afternoon seemed to have sunk into oblivion. The
chairman of the Committee on Supplies, however, having gone into the
cellar one morning to inspect the coal reserve, found himself obliged
either to wade knee deep in water or to neglect his duty--and, of
course, being a sensible man, he chose the latter course. He knew that
in impecunious churches willing candidates for vestry honors were rare,
and he, therefore, properly saved himself for future use. Wading in
water might have brought on pneumonia, and he was aware that there
really isn't any reason why a man should die for a cause if there is a
reasonable excuse for his living in the same behalf. But he went home
angry.
"That cellar isn't repaired yet," he said to his wife.
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