If a god leaned out of a cloud of fire and spoke to us to-day we'd put the spectroscope on his cloud, get a moving picture of him, and take his voice on a phonograph record; and we wouldn't believe him if he talked against experience." Dave surveyed the obscure small-towners with a last tolerant smile and withdrew.
"My!" said Gideon, which for him was strong speech.
"Talks like an atheist," said Sharon.
"Mustn't judge him harshly," warned Harvey D.
* * * * * So it came that Merle Dalton Whipple, born Cowan, was rather peremptorily summoned to meet these older Whipples at another conference.

It was politely termed a conference by Harvey D., though Sharon warmly urged a simpler description of the meeting, declaring that Merle should be told he was to come home and behave himself.

Harvey D.
and Gideon, however, agreed upon the more tactful summons.

They discussed, indeed, the propriety of admitting Sharon to the conference.
Each felt that he might heedlessly offend the young intellectual by putting things with a bluntness for which he had often been conspicuous.
Yet they agreed at last that he might be present, for each secretly distrusted his own firmness in the presence of one with so strong an appeal as their boy.

They admonished Sharon to be gentle.