I. The Business Manager of The Extravaganza

I climbed the stairs and was ushered into the innermost holy of holies.

Photographs of the Saints and the Early Fathers dotted the walls, and their remains, from locks of hair to nail clippings, were strewn carelessly about in overtumbling confusion.

Hut the chef d'oeuvre hung on the wall over the bed. It was a life-like portrait of the great man himself, seated serenely in a long galley with the figurehead of a cross in its bows. Various infidels were drowning in the water or being pushed off the sides of the galley by the slaves who executed his orders. Youthful wings sprouted from his shoulders, and beneath in large gold lettering ran the legend

"Safe in the Barque of Peter,"

"It makes me feel like Shakespeare," I whispered, "you know where the lily-maid, the Lady of Shalott floats down the river to many-towered Camelot; or like G. K. Chesterton," I thought again, "where he tells about King Arthur, the noblest Roman of them all, and how the dusky barge of the three stately, black-stoled queens bore him away from Sir Bedivere to the island valley of Avilon."

"You like it," said he smilingly.

"I will," I said resolutely, forgetting for the moment, in that atmosphere of sanctity, that I was not in church and at one at my frequent marriage ceremonies.

"I mean, I do," I amended hurriedly, recovering my balance with an effort.

"I'm glad of that," he returned. "I've thought at times that it might be a trifle egotistical—but there, my usual good taste rarely fails me."

"You are an art connoisseur?" I asked humbly.

"I've heard it said so," he admitted.

"Sacred art?" I inquired more humbly still.

"Yes," he expanded, "secular art, you know, bores me stiff. Take the Extravaganza for instance. Do you think I'd have consented to take the business managership if it hadn't been for that scene in the Egyptian temple? Not on your life. Religion makes the world go round, and extravaganzas pay."

"Yes," I said, "Opah was certainly an acquisition compared with our mere temporal sovereigns like Elizabeth. And I agree with yon that religion has an effect of making things swim round—like beer taken in excess. But what is your opinion of school masters?" I interposed adroitly to switch him off before he went off into a fit of religions ecstasy.

He spluttered impotently, words failing him.

The fit of anger passed and dignified grief took its place. "We'd have given him all the money he made out of that tin pot concert and still made a profit on another performance," he said sorrowfully.

"I understand that you are grievously offended at Mr. Potter's attack on your loyalty to y on r church and your country," I angled again, avoiding the sore subject of school teachers.

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For answer, he opened a Clipboard and took out a four-inch nail and a hammer, Me shut the door, locked it, drew the blind, and switched on the electric light. Then just as I was meditating crawling under the bed, he approached a curtained wardrobe and drew aside the covering, revealing to my astounded gaze a perfect likeness, a marvellously well-executed effigy in wax of Mr. V. H. Potter, M.P. There was the same lank, well-greased hair, the same thin rakish figure, the same long, lean face. Through the base of the skull was driven a poker which projected out of the back of the neck. Over the lungs and the other vital parts were driven deeply six-inch nails. And a deep gap ill the throat revealed a nail which, on the farther side of the neck, fastened the figure to the wall.

"G-r-r-r-r-r, you, g-r-r-r-r-r, g-r-r-r-r-r, growled the great man fearsomely. Then he affixed the nail in place and began hammering.

He stopped suddenly. "It's an old secret of Mother Church this," he said, "the good old way of torturing an enemy.. Father Gondringer told me about it, and asked me to give my support to his letters to the papers."

"G-r-r-r-r, you." He became absorbed in his task again.

He hammered again. Then he stopped suddenly. "I got an idea from that article of young Baume's in the last 'Spike,' he said, "the one about the Chinese tortures."

He extended the limb to me into which he was hammering the nail.

I looked—it was the hand. From the forefinger he had removed the finger nail before commencing operations.

I shrieked; the wax figure began to quiver, to tremble in abject terror, to writhe in agony. I fled from that ghastly scene in dismay. Ever since it has haunted me in my dreams, in terror-swept nightmares.

I psycho-analyse myself by revealing the matter to "The Spike,' and if I have abused confidences I can plead that the approaching onset of hysteria demanded extreme measures to pre-vent its devastating ravages on my mental health.