This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Tales of the Long Bow

you exactly what he said. I've watched him off and on for twenty years. I bet he began by saying: 'I don't profess to be a religious man.'"

"Right, quite right," cried the cleric bounding upon his chair in a joyous manner, "that's exactly how he began. 'I don't profess to be a religious man, but I trust I have some reverence and good taste. I don't drag religion into politics.' And I said: 'No, I don't think you do.'"

A moment after, he bounded, as it were, in a new direction. "And that reminds me of what I came about," he cried. "Enoch Oates, your American friend, drags religion into politics all right; only it's a rather American sort of religion. He's talking about a United States of Europe and wants to introduce you to a Lithuanian Prophet. It seems this Lithuanian party has started a movement for a Universal Peasant Republic or World State of Workers on the Land; but at present he's only got as far as Lithuania. But he seems inclined to pick up England on the way, after the unexpected success of the English agrarian party."

"What's the good of talking to me about a World State," growled Hood. "Didn't I say I preferred a Heptarchy?"

"Don't you understand?" interrupted

302