Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 4 (1926-10).djvu/42

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Weird Tales

beneath his heavily booted heel, "but see, the foot of one who fears them not is mightier than all the gods of heathendom. Is it not so?"

The girl smiled faintly and nodded.


De Grandin was out of the house at sunup, and returned before 9 o'clock with a fleet of motor cars hastily commandeered from a roadhouse garage which he discovered a couple of miles down the road. "Remember, Mesdemoiselles," he admonished as the cars swung away from the portico of the temple with the erstwhile pupils of the School of Neo-paganism, "those wills and testaments, they must be revoked forthwith. The detestable one, he has the present copies, but any will which you wish to make will revoke those he holds. Leave your money to found a vocal school for Thomas cats, or for a gymnasium for teaching young frogs to leap, but bequeath it to some other cause than this temple of false gods, I do implore you."

"Ready, sport?" the driver of the car reserved for us demanded, lighting a cigarette and flipping the match toward the temple steps with a disdainful gesture.

"In one moment, my excellent one," de Grandin answered as he turned from me and hurried into the house. "Await me, Friend Trowbridge," he called over his shoulder; "I have an important mission to perform."

"What the dickens did you run back into that place for when the chauffeur was all ready to drive us away?" I demanded as we bowled over the smooth road toward the railway station.

He turned his unwinking cat's stare on me a moment, then his little blue eyes sparkled with a gleam of elfin laughter. "Pardieu, my friend," he chuckled, "that Professor Judson, I found a trunkful of his clothes in the room he occupied, and paused to burn them all. Death of my life, I did rout him from the premises in that Greek costume he wore last night, and when he returns he will find naught but glowing embers of his modern garments! What a figure he will cut, walking into a haberdasher's clothed like Monsieur Nero, and asking for a suit of clothes. La, la, could we but take a motion picture of him, our eternal fortunes would be made!"