Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

CHAPTER I

With women Elmer had always considered himself what he called a "quick worker," but the properties of the ministry, the delighted suspicion with which the gossips watched a preacher who went courting, hindered his progress with Cleo. He could not, like the young blades in town, walk with Cleo up the railroad tracks or through the willow-shaded pasture by Banjo River. He could hear ten thousand Methodist elders croaking, "Avoid the vurry appearance of evil."