“Job Slip, get down upon your knees--just where you stand!”
Job hesitated.
“Down!” cried Bayard.
Job obeyed, as if he had been a dog.
“Now, lift up your hands--so--to the sky.”
As if the minister had been a cut-throat, Job obeyed again.
“Now pray,” commanded Bayard.
“I don’t know--how to,” stammered Job.
“Pray! Pray!” repeated Bayard.
“I’ve forgot the way you do it, sir!”
“No matter how other people do it! This is your affair. Pray your
own way. Pray anyhow. But _pray_!”
“I haven’t done such a thing since I was--since I used to say:
‘Eenty Deenty Donty,’--no, that ain’t it, neither. ‘Now I lay
me?’ That’s more like it. But that don’t seem appropriate to the
circumstances, sir.”
“Try again, Job.”
“’Tain’t no use, Mr. Bayard. I’m a goner. If I couldn’t keep sober
for you, I ain’t ergointer for no Creetur I never see nor spoke
to,--nor no man ever see nor spoke to,--a thousand fathoms up
overhead.”
Job lifted his trembling arms high and higher towards the dark sky.
“Pray!” reiterated Bayard.
“I can’t do it, sir!”
“_Pray!_” commanded Bayard.
“Oh,--God!” gasped Job.
Bayard took off his hat. Job’s arms fell; his face dropped into
them; he shook from head to foot.
“There!” he cried, “I done it.... I’ll do it again. God! God!
_God!_”