The Christian Bite

‘I HATE this Christian world we live in. I hate its cheap morals, I hate its mean standards, I hate everything about it! It is all small and petty! Narrow, tight, two-by-four lives watered with a stuff called goodness and pressed into a mould hardened by tradition. The Romans were right. They cast the Christians into an arena. They fed them to lions and enjoyed every minute of it. They paid admission to see the spectacle and I’d gladly pay a good deal to see — Well, I hate them, anyway.’

These were the earnest words of Charles Adams Scott, born in Boston, the son of a clergyman. He banged his fist on the table as he raged about the narrowness of this Christian world; and little did we expect at the time that these words would start a whole series of incidents. In fact, that is how the trouble started. It began in anger and it ended almost in tears. And between the anger and the tears ran a current of unbelievable and ridiculous events.

At first I paid no attention to Scott’s anger. There was one year when he hated the Germans; then he hated the French and worked himself into a frenzy about them. Only recently he opposed the rich and blamed them for a good share of the world’s miseries; and now it was Christianity. Well, I did n’t think it meant very much, and when I went home that evening I thought of Daniel in the lions’ den and smiled at the idea. ‘He’s an odd fellow,’ I said to myself, and went to bed to sleep through a restful night. But I must admit that I have not had a peaceful night since.

He drove over the next morning and tooted the horn of the car. When I came to the front of the house he yelled: ‘Get your hat and come to town with me. I want a witness.’ He drove over to the office of a friend, an attorney.

‘ I want to ask you some problems in law.’

‘Fire away,’ said the lawyer.

‘Can a man sell away his life?’

‘Yes and no,’ replied the lawyer. ‘In the eyes of the law a man’s life belongs to God alone. That is, with exceptions. But—’

‘ Leave out this Christian business. What are the exceptions?’

‘ Well, they may be numerous. In the case of a criminal the law has a right to take away his life. But there may be other exceptions also.’

‘Has the law any objections to people witnessing the death of a man?'

‘In the South,’ replied the attorney, ‘people attend hangings in great numbers.’

‘That is all I want to know.’ And with that we left the office.

I was too dazed to speak. I looked at Scott.

‘I am not so crazy as you think,’ he said. ‘What is in the back of my mind is a plan that will knock this narrow Christian world into a cocked hat. I am going to stage a Roman sacrifice on a grand scale. I will hire a big place like the Yale Bowl and get a couple of lions from a menagerie and then throw in a Christian.’

‘You are mad,’ I cried.

‘Not so mad as you think. It will be a great gesture and attract attention. It will shake the very foundations of our society.’

‘You will have the world against you! ‘

‘No, not at all. We don’t have to sacrifice a good Christian — we can get hold of a bad one. And nobody can object to that. Even on their own standards they could not object.’

‘What standards?’

‘Christian standards!’ Scott yelled. ‘In the Christian world that we live in, only the good have any right of existence.’

‘Surely you’re not serious,’ I protested. ‘And where will you find this Christian for the mad gesture that you think will rock foundations?’

‘Wait and see!’

That evening he showed me a copy of a letter he had typewritten to the State’s Prison. He explained his plan at length and requested that he be given the next criminal who was about to be executed. He relieved the prison authorities of any trouble in the matter, and said that the criminal’s death would be witnessed by thousands and any money made by the venture would be donated toward the improvement of prison conditions.

Having had no answer to his letter, at the end of a week he wrote again. In reply to his second letter he was visited by two detectives who came to find out if he was a dangerous character. His session with them lasted two and a half hours and when they left they hardly knew what he was, and they came to seek information from me. I assured them at once that it was only a sort of joke and that there was nothing seriously wrong with Scott, excepting, perhaps, his sense of humor.

‘Now you have had your lesson. Live and let live,’ I said when I saw him again.

‘ I knew you would say something of the sort,’ he replied. ‘You sum it up and dispose of it with one of your tubercular proverbs. You’re a cheap sport!’

It did me no good to try to point out that I had done my best to stand by him, and that while I was not wholly in sympathy with his project I still understood his motives and remained loyal. It did me little good to tell all this, for what Scott wanted to know was regarding the future. He wanted to know if I would see him through ‘to the bitter end’; and if I had only known at the time what this would imply I think I should have risked our friendship rather than the mad adventure. It was mad, indeed, from start to finish. But the bark of it was worse than the bite.

Before I knew it, we were off for New York in his old, dilapidated car. ‘New York,’ he said, ‘is the right place for such a gesture. It’s the place where people will pay admission to see a real live martyr thrown to the lions.’ He abandoned the idea of the Yale Bowl in favor of the City College Stadium in upper New York. This was the best neighborhood, he said, for the ‘pageant.’ At one time he called it a ‘gesture,’ at another a ‘pageant,’ and once he even went so far as to call it ‘the lion’s bite.’ At all times he was in deadly earnest.

At Bridgeport came our first disappointment. We visited the winter home of the big circus and were told it was off touring in the Middle West. We were also told, however, of an old German animal-trainer who might be able to put us in the path of a lion. With a little difficulty we found the place.

‘What kind of animals have you got what needs training?’ asked our host.

‘We came to inquire about a lion.’

‘How old is it?’

‘No. We want to rent one.’

‘Oh,’ said the German, a bit disappointed, ‘you want to get one? Oh, I see.’

For a moment a heavy silence hung in the room, ‘Would a couple of baby leopards do? I got first-class leopards what can eat out of your hands.

Scott explained that only lions would be eligible, and then he added cautiously that he did not need them very highly trained, but preferred to have them hungry and ferocious.

‘My animals eat the best,’ protested the trainer. ‘They eat the same as I eat. Many a man would be glad to get such good food.’

Scott did not disclose his venture for fear that the trainer would feel that the lions were endangered by this Christian bite. The German seemed very cautious and wanted to know again if his pair of leopards would not do.

In the yard, along the wall of which grew sunflowers, stood a row of boxlike cages, mostly empty. In one of these the keeper had a lioness, but I cannot say I should have recognized the beast as such. She was far removed from my picture-book and menagerie experiences. But the keeper insisted that she was of first-class parentage, though I must say that her looks would hardly have gained her admission to the cartoon pages of Punch.

‘What you want, Scott,’ I said, ‘is a regular British lion. One with a good dark mane anti a wide, flat nose.'

‘When we brush her up,’said the keeper, ‘you will not recognize her. She is beautiful. When I lend her out for motion pictures — Did you see the picture, “The Man Who Is Slapped”? Well, she photographs like a million dollars. When I brush her up I give her a little hair dye in the collar and bring it all up high — big all around. She is beautiful. My wife loves her.’

‘What is her name?’ asked Scott.

‘Fanny. My wife calls her Fanny.’

‘Is she the only one you have?’

‘That’s the only baby in Bridgeport; the rest is traveling.’

Scott bit his lips. He was vexed. He mumbled something to me — something about making the best of a bad business. Then he spoke privately to the trainer and they walked to the back of the yard and stood among the sunflowers. At length I heard that the deal had been made, and Fanny, box and all, was lifted out of the yard and put into the back of our car. We covered the box with a rug, and off we started.

‘Take my advice,’I said, ‘and avoid the Boston Road.'

‘You are too darned cautious,’ Scott replied. He drove on. Evening was approaching and I began to get worried.

All this time Fanny had been very well behaved, and I feared that now she might kick up and begin to protest. But nothing happened. I could hear her tail knocking against the boards of her box. I kept trying to persuade Scott that the venture was an impossible one and that no good could come of it. But he only pointed his finger at me and said: ‘Remember your promise. On to New York!’

Once I even said to him: ‘Look at Ingersoll. With all his eloquence he was unable to make any noticeable impression on Christianity. Then what will you do with your fleabite?’

‘That’s the trouble,’ he replied. ‘Ingersoll tried to reason with them. You can’t reason with a religion — you can only ridicule it or show it up. We will show it up. Then you will hear them holler. You will see! Remember your promise! You will see!’

‘Shall we rent an apartment for Fanny or will she live a la carte in a hotel?’ I asked in à sarcastic voice.

He stopped the car. He needed time to think. At length he decided that we would make our headquarters in a roadhouse not far from White Plains. This would be near enough to New York to allow us to visit the city daily.

The plan was not a bad one. We secured two rooms in this country hotel and parked Fanny in a little garage in the back yard. They gave us a key to the padlock on the door of the garage, and all seemed well. The only funny part about it was the name of the hotel. It was called the Blue Mouse, and I tried to invent all kinds of puns about the lion and the mouse. But Scott would stop me and say: ‘Cut it out. Can’t you be serious about anything?’ As a matter of fact the puns were like trying to whistle to keep up courage. Then Scott would say, pointing his finger: ‘Remember your promise. Now where do you think we shall find our Christian?’

At first he was going to ask the girls in the Blue Mouse, but I protested. I told him they would never understand — they were only country girls, innocent in all things, excepting perhaps sex matters, which they learn in detail from the movies. I said that I was wholly against complicating our problems with the fair sex. ‘We should look for a man — a Christian man in New York,’ I said. It would be difficult, but I thought he could be found.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Scott. ‘A woman in the arena, eaten by a lion! That’s what would make the sensation. That’s the gesture to give them.’

But I insisted on a man. ‘Suppose you make this deal with a woman,’ I argued, ‘and we bring her here to the hotel for the rehearsals and — ‘

‘Rehearsals!’ he cried.

‘Yes, rehearsals. How else are you going to manage? Can you dare risk it without pumping up her courage? Suppose we are already in the arena, and the wild beast is let loose, and the woman jumps up into the lower boxes — what are you going to do? Who will throw her back to the beast? Will you? And suppose the night before the performance she begins to weaken and tears roll from her eyes and she sobs about her mother and reminds you that she was once a little girl and — Well, who will comfort her? Will you? No — we must have a man. A man who understands. A man of courage.’

The task was not an easy one, but after several days we found a hobo in a Bowery mission who was willing, for five hundred dollars, to go through with this deal. Of course he wanted to know if there was n’t anything else he could do for the same money. But at last he consented.

’What is your name?’ I asked, as he got into the back of the car.

‘Evans — Billy Evans,’ he mumbled in his toothless mouth.

‘Evans is a good old name,’ I remarked. ‘You won’t fail us?’

‘I give you my word as a gentleman,’ he replied, and put forward his knotty hand for me to shake. Then he shook hands with Scott, too, for at that time he did not know which of us was going to pay out the money.

When we got him to the Blue Mouse we explained the plan in detail. He listened; but when we asked him if he knew anything about the old Christian martyrs he said in his deep, whiskeyed voice, ‘Do they serve any sandwiches here?’

‘ The poor man is hungry,’ I cried, and rang for the waiter.

‘What kind would you like?’ said the waiter, as he named half a dozen.

‘Bring one of each,’ said Scott, who did not fancy the interruption.

While the hungry man ate and drank near-beer Scott continued with the plan. ‘Now of course the five hundred dollars goes to any person you desire to leave it to. The whole business is for the benefit of humanity. Your name will live in history.’ The hungry man munched the sandwiches and drank the beer. When he was through he wanted to know if he could have a cup of coffee.

While he drank the coffee and wiped his unshaved chin Scott went on. ‘ The main reason for going to all this trouble and doing this is to show the world that there are some people who have a great contempt for Christianity, who feel that on the whole Christianity has been a force for evil and bad. The world has refused to listen to reason, but a spectacle of this kind will demand attention and give courage to those who feel as we do but have been too weak to say so.’ When the coffee was finished a bell announced that dinner was ready.

’I feel now,’ said Scott, ‘ that we have made great strides. To-morrow you run down and engage the City College Stadium for an afternoon about two weeks from now.’

‘You insist on the City College Stadium?’ I said.

‘There are many reasons. I have given the matter a good deal of thought. In the first place it resembles a Roman arena, and has a large seating-capacity. Then one side is closed with a high iron fence, so that Fanny could not escape. Besides, it is situated in a desirable part of the city. Nobody in that section could really object to the sacrifice of a Christian — in fact, most of them would enjoy it. It is the most desirable place. You arrange for it, and I will continue instructing the main actor and settle with a printer for tickets and posters. — By the way,’ he added, ‘I think you feed Fanny too much.’

That night we had turtle soup and broiled chicken for supper, after which we sat on the porch and smoked cigars — and so did the hobo.

Then I called Scott aside. ‘There is just this that came into my mind. We know very little about this fellow. Are you sure he is a Christian? The mere fact that we found him at a mission means nothing. We certainly cannot go any further unless we find out. It would be a great joke on us if it were discovered when it was over that he was n’t a Christian after all.’

‘What is the test of a Christian?’

I had to admit that I did not know.

‘Well, now, let’s see,’ Scott reasoned. ‘He is not a Chinaman or an Eskimo. He is not a Buddhist from India or a Mohammedan from Turkey. He is certainly not a Zionist. Then what else can he be? ‘ My fears were pacified.

In the morning we had a long talk with Billy Evans. He was a Christian all right, though he admitted he never practised at it very regularly. He said: ‘Me and my missus parted company in Chicago ten year back. Our little girl was confirmed in church. Church is for the womenfolk, says I. It’s no place for a fellow who feels his independence.’

‘Then how did you happen to come to the mission?’ I asked.

‘Coffee and buns,’ he answered. ‘All you do is confess something and the rest is easy.’

‘You see!’ said Scott indignantly. ‘We will teach them a lesson. To take starving men and force ethics into them before they can get a cup of coffee! ‘

‘Without sugar,’ added the tramp. ‘I wonder if they got any more of them sandwiches left.’ Between meals he ate sandwiches and drank near-beer. In fact, he ate all day long, and I soon feared that indigestion might take him from us. At the same time I starved Fanny — I gave her nothing to eat for two whole days. She rolled her eyes and flopped her heavy tail against the side of the box. It was a plan to make her ferocious, so that when the time came she would not fail us.

All this while I avoided going down to New York to arrange for the Stadium. I found first one excuse, then another; how much longer I could postpone it I did not know. Surely something must happen, I thought, that would put an end to this mad adventure. Then Evans announced, ‘ I decided to leave the money to the missus.'

‘How will you locate her?’

‘ I will send her a letter. Her brother in New York has a plumber business on Third Avenue.’

‘All right,’I said. ‘Write your letter at once.’

‘I will,’ he said, ‘but how about five dollars now for myself?’

I called Scott, who gave him five dollars on the promise that he would not run away.

‘I only want to get a haircut and a shave,’ he added. And sure enough he came back to the Blue Mouse — in time for lunch.

While he was out Scott said to me, ‘I guess it’s time to start the rehearsals.’ I had no idea, of course, how an affair of this kind could be rehearsed, and could offer no suggestions. But Scott now had definite notions about the matter, and asked me to secure for him a lady’s nightgown. That is exactly what he said. He did not say, ‘Steal a nightgown for me’; he did not say, ‘Borrow a nightgown,’ and he did not say, ‘ Buy a nightgown,’ All he said was ‘Secure a nightgown.’ He left it all to me — and it was most embarrassing.

You can well imagine the mood I was in. I went out into the back yard, unlocked the little garage, sat down on the running-board of the car, and looked at Fanny. ‘Poor Fanny,’ I mumbled. ‘Poor Fanny. Here we brought you away from home, and separated you from your trainer’s wife, who loves you, on a darn fool mission that was never any good from the start and will end the same way. And now we have starved you for two days so that the pangs of hunger will force you to eat this Christian hobo — and that’s no kind of diet for a lady. Yes, my dear, you will have a nice Christian bite, but it’s more than likely that it will give you indigestion. Poor Fanny — you are a beast and I am a beast too. Forgive me, Fanny. My heart was never set on this adventure— I was humbugged into it.’ Fanny pricked up her ears, rolled her big watery eyes, and flopped her tail against the box.

‘Yes, my dear, you will have a Christian bite,’ I continued, forgetting all about the nightgown. ‘A nice Christian bite; but what would you do, Fanny, if I opened your box and let you loose? You great big overgrown cat, what would you do? Could you find your way home to Bridgeport?’

Just as I was saying this the colored porter passed the open garage door with a garbage can that he had emptied.

‘Morning, boss,’ he called. ‘How is your zoo behaving?'

‘Fine and dandy,’ I replied.

He stuck his head in. ‘Still sleeping,’ he remarked.

‘No, she’s just kind of lazy,’ I said.

‘How would she like a nice cup of coffee to brace her up?’

‘As far as I am concerned, you can give her iodine,’ I said.

In a minute he returned with a big pot of coffee. I poured it into Fanny’s pan and locked the garage. While giving the colored man his tip I reminded myself of the nightgown. He was just the right person to ask, and it seemed a stroke of genius, for in less than half an hour he delivered to my room a lacysilk orchid-colored affair.

In the evening of that day I heard a great commotion. Scott rushed into my room, the nightgown in his hand. He was boiling with rage.

‘Is this what you got?' he thundered. ‘Are you trying to make a fool of me? Did you ever hear of a Christian martyr in a pink nightgown?’

‘It’s not pink,’ I murmured.

The rehearsal was postponed until the next day. In the morning I returned the silken gown to the porter, who wanted to know if I would not like another pot of coffee for the zoo. As Fanny had not had any food for days I thought a little stimulant might do no harm, and we gave her the coffee. Then I went in search of a department store to buy a white-cotton regulation Christian martyr nightgown.

When I returned I was met by the colored porter, who cried, ‘Hurry up, boss! Your zoo is kicking up a big holler!’

Sure enough, Fanny was letting loose her wild jungle cries. ‘There is nothing to be done,’ I said. ‘If she wants to holler, let her holler.’

While we were eating lunch we heard her again. Scott remarked that he did not know she had it in her. But the poor hobo was as pale as the cotton nightgown I had bought. The color he had taken on during the week had all vanished in a moment. ‘Now I wish I had n’t written that letter,’ he remarked, as he passed his plate for another helping of pie.

Fanny was quiet all afternoon. I paid her two visits and finally came to Scott to announce that the poor beast was sick. I told him she was so weak that if the performance were to take place that day the Christian would probably eat the lion; her condition was such that she would n’t mind who bit her.

‘What made her sick?’ he asked.

‘Starvation,’ I thought. But I also mentioned the coffee as a possibility.

Scott directed me to go at once to a first-class butcher shop and buy a good sirloin steak. ‘That will fix her up,’ he said. And while I was gone they would begin rehearsing.

Little did I suspect, when I set out in search of the butcher, what was waiting for me on my return. For that matter, little did I suspect, when we left Boston, what madness and folly I was to be led into. I wandered about aimlessly, looking for a butcher shop in streets where I was certain none could be. It was what psychologists call an escape mechanism. I was trying to escape. I was like Fanny in her box. I did not dare to face reality. It was all so impossible, so incredible, so unbelievable, so insane. I did not want to find a butcher and return with a sirloin steak. I made all kinds of wishes as I walked. I wished a policeman would come up to me and arrest me; I wished a passing automobile would run over me; I wished Fanny would break loose and run home; I wished all kinds of things, until I found myself actually in a plain, matter-offact butcher shop.

When I got back to Fanny she was lying on her side, jerking her legs, in the grip of a violent hiccough. ‘Here’s a nice little steak for you, Fanny,’ I said, as I worked the fivepound sirloin through the bars. But she could not be tempted. I waited a moment and then pushed the steak up to her nose, but she would not have it. In fact, we might have found this out before if we had n’t been such fools. Then I ran to the house to give the news. It was good news for me, and I made up my mind how to say it. I was going to run up the stairs, burst open the door, and cry, ‘It’s all off! She don’t eat meat!’ I repeated the words as I ran.

Just then a limousine drove up to the front door and I could hear a slight commotion, but I did not stop. I ran up the stairs and threw open the door, but I was speechless.

In the middle of the room stood the hobo smoking a cigar; over his clothes hung the white nightgown, which draped around his big shoes. Scott was under the table pretending he was the raging lion.

‘When I growl,’ he said, ‘you roll your eyes and look spiritual.’

People had followed me up the stairs, and before I had time to cry, ‘She don’t eat meat!’ a crowd was already in the room. Scott stuck his head out from under the table as a woman cried: ‘Billy! Billy!’ and flung herself into the arms of the hobo. ‘ It’s not too late, Billy. It’s not too late,’ she sobbed, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

In the meantime her young companion was dragging Scott out from under the table and shouting, ‘ I’ll teach you how to take advantage of a poor old man! I’ll teach you all right! I’ll teach you!’

Then the woman turned on me, but the hobo pacified them by saying: ‘The boys is all right. They’re a bunch of nuts, but they mean right.’ Then he turned to us and said by way of explanation, ‘That’s my missus.’

‘I have a good mind to turn you over to the police! ‘ shouted the ‘missus.’ Her head and neck were covered with artificial jewels of great size, and as she spoke they clanked.

It was impossible to explain. There was nothing to say. When the nightgown was torn off our Christian he stood looking about as though in a daze.

‘Our car is downstairs, Billy. Maggie will be home when we get there. She is working to-night in the Fox studio. She doubles for the star.’ Then, turning to us, she said proudly: ‘That’s my daughter, and it’s mother’s love what did it. Mother’s love,’ she repeated. ‘It’s good we are not too late. It’s good he wrote me. We don’t want your old money!’ she cried, and drew a letter from her large beaded bag and threw it on the table. Tears came to her eyes. ‘What mother’s love did for my daughter it can also do for my Billy-Boy.’ She kissed him again.

In another moment they were gone. Oh, what a sense of relief! Then I whispered to Scott: ‘Well, it’s good they are gone. Fanny don’t eat meat anyway. We might have found it out before, but we did n’t. She is terribly sick, and if she dies on our hands — and we have a dead cat to bring back to Bridgeport — what can we tell Mr. Kraus, the keeper, and his wife who loves her? What can we say?’ We were just in the mood for a long tale of woe, and I went on and on.

At length Scott could stand it no longer. He jumped to his feet and cried, ‘Come, pack your bag!’ This was the happiest moment in my life.

That very night we returned Fanny to her old home — her sunflowered back yard in Bridgeport. We deposited the box in its place, and Scott went into the house to settle with the keeper while I remained in the yard to say good-bye to Fanny. I walked up and down in front of the cage. ‘Good-bye, Fanny,’ I said. ‘It’s all for the best. Here is where you belong instead of that old stuffy garage in back of the Blue Mouse. You have been a good girl, Fanny. You are a perfect lady even though you don’t eat meat. I hope you will forgive us, Fanny. This whole scheme was hardly right from the start. You were roped in and I was roped in. It was a lot of noise and nothing more. You were the only one who acted with any dignity. I guess you understand a good deal more than people think. Yes, you’re a good old girl, Fanny; you have more brains than we and I hope you ‘ll forgive us. We live in a civilized world, and martyrs are different now. You know what I mean by civilized; by civilized I mean half-and-half. Scott’s idea is not a bad one, — you know you must give the Devil his due, — but the way he goes about it is all wrong. He should write a book instead of going in for arena affairs that threaten to be messy and land him in jail. If he feels the way he does about Christianity he should at least be a gentleman about it. That is what I have tried to tell him, but he would not listen to reason. I wish you could speak to him. I wish you could only say you forgive us. Good-bye, Fanny. You are a perfect lady, and I will always love you. Goodbye.’ As we went out of the gate I could again hear the dull knock of her tail against the hollow sides of her box, and I felt she understood.

We remained in a Bridgeport hotel overnight. The next day was Sunday, and to avoid the heavy traffic of the Boston Road we started at daybreak and ran on full speed. At last we were returning home, and my gladness burst out into a tuneful whistle. But Scott jerked at the wheel and the clutch of the car, and I could tell he was angry.

We reached Boston before noon. The trees along the avenue seemed black against the sky. At last we were hardly a mile from home, when suddenly, as though it were all staged for our arrival, the church bells began ringing. First one church, then another, and in the distance we heard a third. With every stroke Scott winced. Now he could stand it no longer, and suddenly stopped the car in front of the next church. The large doors were open and we could hear the slow, beating, low notes of the organ. Little girls in white dresses hurried up the stone steps.

‘I won’t give it up!’ Scott cried. ‘I am not going to lie down so easily. I will face them in their own den. I will preach them the kind of sermon they need. Narrow, tight, bigoted fools! I will show them what they are. You just wait until the music stops and see what happens. I won’t be cowed by a lot of cheap sentiments! I won’t be beaten by ragtime moralists! Peddlers in secondhand ideals! Cowards — that’s what they are! They are afraid to face the world as it is. They run away from it every Sunday. But they won’t run away from me! Wait till their spiritual band stops playing. And when I run in, you close the doors! Don’t fail!’ He clutched me by the collar.

‘You will be arrested!’ I stammered.

‘So much the better! Then the whole world will know.’

He loosened his hold, and I thrust my hands into my coat pockets as I waited for the organ to stop playing. Suddenly I discovered a letter in one of my pockets. I pulled it out and looked at it.

‘What are you reading?’ growled Scott.

‘ It’s the letter the hobo wrote to his “missus.” ‘

We both read: —

DEAR TILLY: —
By the time you get this I will be ate by a hungry lion. Go and get 500 bucks from the boys in the Blue Mouse hotel. Love to Maggie.
Yours all eaten up,
BILLY

It was hard to believe, but there it was. And to make sure that my eyes did not fool me I read it again, this time aloud. I wanted to laugh, but I did not dare. At length, after a long and painful silence, we left the church. Suddenly Scott stopped the car and pointed to an old house opposite.

’ There is where Henry Adams lived,’ he said, and took off his hat. ‘ He knew it was useless. He knew it was hopeless. He knew that it was all wrong. He was a man. He was a thorn in the side of society. He was a democratic aristocrat. He showed them what they were — narrow, tight, two-by-four, cheap peddlers in worn-out ideals! Sentimental bigots! But what use was it? Here we are — and it’s Sunday!’