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The
Big Bow Mystery Sample
“A plain man" was Crowl's catchword. When of a Sunday morning he stood on Mile End Waste, which was opposite his shop, and held forth to the crowd on the evils of kings, priests, and mutton chops, the 'plain man' turned up at intervals like the theme of a symphonic movement. "I am only a plain man and I want to know." It was a phrase that sabred the spider webs of logical refinement, and held them up scornfully on the point. When Crowl went for a little recreation in Victoria Park on Sunday afternoons, it was with this phrase that he invariably routed the supernaturalists.
Crowl knew his Bible better than most ministers, and always carried a minutely printed copy in his pocket, dog's-eared to mark contradictions in the text. The second chapter of Jeremiah says one thing; the first chapter of Corinthians says another. Two contradictory statements may both be true, but "I am only a plain man, and I want to know." Crowl spent a large part of his time in setting 'the word against the word.' Cock fighting affords its votaries no acuter pleasure than Crowl derived from setting two texts by the ears. Crowl had a metaphysical genius which sent his Sunday morning disciples frantic with admiration, and struck the enemy dumb with dismay. He had discovered, for instance, that the Deity could not move, owing to already filling all space. He was also the first to invent, for the confusion of the clerical, the crucial case of a saint dying at the Antipodes contemporaneously with another in London. Both went skyward to heaven, yet the two traveled in directly opposite directions. In all eternity they would never meet. Which, then, got to heaven? or was there no such place?
"I am only a plain man, and I want to know."