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"Yes? Anyway, we're all giving praises to the Lord that you were spared."
"That's fine," said Park.
"It surely is a wonderful case of how His love watches over us "
"What's on your mind, Cooley?" said Park, sternly repressing a snarl of impatience.
"Oh uh what I meant was, will you give your usual sermon next Sunday?"
Park thought quickly. If he could give a sermon and get away with it, it ought to discourage the people
who were trying to prove the bishop loony. "Sure I will. Where are you calling from?"
"Why uh the vestry." Some damned assistant, thought Park. "But, Hallow, won't you come up
tonight? I'm getting some of the parishioners together in the chapel for a homish thanksgiving stint with
hymns of "
"I'm afraid not," said Park. "Give 'em my love anyway. There goes my doorbell. Bye."
He marched into the library, muttering. Dunedin asked: "What is it, Hallow?"
"Gotta prepare a goddam sermon," said Park, taking some small pleasure at his thane's thane's
expression of horror.
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Fortunately the bishop was an orderly man. There were manuscripts of all his sermons for the past five
years, and phonograph records (in the form of magnetized wire) of several. There was also plenty of
information about the order of procedure in a Celtic Christian service. Park set about concocting a
sermon out of fragments and paragraphs of those the bishop had delivered during the past year, playing
the spools of wire over and over to learn the bishop's inflections. He wished he had some way of getting
the bishop's gestures, too.
He was still at it next day when he dimly heard his doorbell. He thought nothing of it, trusting to Dunedin
to turn the visitor away, until Monkey-face came in and announced that a pair of knicks awaited without.
Park jumped up. "Did you let 'em in?"
"No, Hallow, I thought "
"Good boy! I'll take care of 'em."
* * ** * *
The larger of the two cops smiled disarmingly. "Can we come in, Hallow, to use your wiretalker?"
"Nope," said Park. "Sorry."
The knick frowned. "In that case we gotta come in anyway. Mistrust of unlawful owning of pipe." He put
his foot in the door crack.
A pipe, Park knew, was a gun. He turned and stamped on the toe of the shoe, hard; then slammed the
door shut as the foot was jerked back. There were some seconds of "frickful aiths" wafting through the
door, then the pounding of a fist against it.
"Get a warrant!" Park yelled through the door. The noise subsided. Park called Dunedin and told him to
lock the other entrances. Presently the knicks departed. Park's inference, based upon what he had been
able to learn of Vinland law, that they would not force an entrance without a warrant, had proved
correct. However, they would be back, and there is nothing especially difficult about "finding" an illegal
weapon in a man's house, whether he had one before or not.
So Park packed a suitcase, climbed to the roof of the adjoining apartment, and went down the elevator.
The elevator man looked at him in a marked manner. Once in the street, he made sure nobody was
looking, and slapped on his mustache and glasses. He pulled his bonnet well down to hide his undyed
hair, and walked over to Allister Park's place. There he telephoned Dunedin, and directed him to call the
city editors of all the pro-bishop newspapers and tip them off that an attempt to frame the bishop
impended. He told Dunedin to let the reporters in when they came; the more the better. Preferably there
should be at least one in every room. Now, he thought, let those flatfeet try to sneak a gun into one of my
bureau drawers so they can "find" it and raise a stink.
He spent the night at the apartment, and the next day, having gotten his sermon in shape, he paid a visit
to his church. He found a functionary of some sort in an office, and told him that he, Allister Park, was
considering getting married in St. Columbanus', and would the functionary (a Th. Morgan) please show
him around? Th. Morgan was pleased to; Dr. Cooley usually did that job, but he was out this afternoon.
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