Fall before him as _dust_ to his feet! Hypocrites, vipers, scoffers! the _lash_ o' the _Lord_ is on ye!" In the intense pause which followed as he waited with expectant, uplifted face--a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held their breath--a dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact voice broke the tense hush.
"S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a bearun' down on the boys a _leetle too_ hard ?" The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it.

His face flushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them the tears of terror still on their cheeks; but Radbourn said, "Bravo, Bacon!" Pill recovered himself.
"Not hard enough for _you_, neighbor Bacon." Bacon rose, retaining the same dry, prosaic tone: "I ain't bitin' that kind of a hook, an' I ain't goin' to be _yanked_ into heaven when I c'n _slide_ into hell.

Waal! I must be goin'; I've got a new-milk's cow that needs tendin' to." The effect of all this was indescribable.

From being at the very mouth of the furnace, quivering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings, Bacon's dry intonation had brought them all back to earth again.

They saw a little of the absurdity of the whole situation.
Pill was beaten for the first time in his life.