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 Reminiscences

Nolini Kanta Gupta

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry

First edition 2015

Rs 90
ISBN 978-93-5210-015-6

© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2015

Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Pondicherry 605
002
Web http://www.sabda.in

Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

 Contents
1 The Ullas — Russell Encounter ................................................ 1

2 Muraripukur 1............................................................................ 8

3 Muraripukur 2.......................................................................... 25

4 Deoghar ................................................................................... 38

5 Shyampukur ............................................................................ 49

6 Pondicherry l .......................................................................... 61

7 Pondicherry 2 ....................................................................... 73

8 Pondicherry Cyclone .............................................................. 94

9 Two Great Wars .................................................................... 101

10 I Bow to the Mother ............................................................ 109

11 I Played Football ................................................................. 122

12 The Soviet Gymnasts........................................................... 141

13 My Athletics ........................................................................ 155

14 Eternal Youth ...................................................................... 165

15 The Second World War (1939-1945) ................................. 170

16 The Situation of Today ........................................................ 185

Note on the Text................................................................... 191

A sketch of Nolini by the Mother made in 1931
 Publisher’s Note

In these reminiscences Nolini Kanta Gupta recounts the

highlights of his eventful life — his transition from student to
revolutionary to disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The
memoirs first appeared in English translation in 1969 under the
title Reminiscences and are now being brought out under the
same title, forty years later, in a second edition. Further details
are given in the Note on the Text at the back.
Sri Aurobindo with Nolini around 1915-18
 1
The Ullas — Russell Encounter

The Subhas — Oaten encounter has attained some notoriety,

as a number of people have on several occasions given an
account of how Subhas Chandra once gave a thrashing with
his shoe to one of his British professors, Oaten. But it seems
to have almost been forgotten by the general public that this
incident was a mere replica or imitation of an earlier and
identical performance. Subhas did not institute anything new;
he was simply following in the footsteps of eminent and
heroic predecessors. Today I propose to give an account of
that original performance.
It was in the year 1905. The Swadeshi movement was in
full tide, flooding the land with its enthusiasm, particularly
the student community. But how about the Calcutta
Presidency College? That was an institution meant for the
“good” boys and for the sons of the rich, that is, for those who,
in the parlance of the time, “had a stake in the country”, those
who, in other words, had something to lose. How far were
they touched by that flood? Those that were touched might be
described as something of a phenomenon.
In 1905, I was in my Second Year class. Among my
classmates were Narendra Nath Law, a well-known name in
later years, and perhaps also Bhupati Mohan Sen, who
1
subsequently came to be known as Principal B. M. Sen.1
Sitapati Banerji too was there; he won the Ishan Scholarship
in his B.A. examination and was ultimately given the name
Swami Raghavananda or Sitapati Maharaj at the Ramakrishna
Mission. These more or less made up the list of the “good”
boys. Among the “bad” ones was Indranath Nandi, a son of
Colonel Nandi of the Indian Medical Service. Let me recount
some of his exploits.
He had been a colleague of Barin Ghose of Maniktolla
Gardens fame, and also a member of the Atmonnati Samiti,
an “Association for Self-improvement”. This Samiti was
really a centre for the recruitment and training of
revolutionaries. I too had been one of the junior members of
the Samiti. Bepin Behari Ganguli was among its organisers.
We had just given up football as being a non-Indian sport and
had taken up lathi and dagger play. I had already attained such
proficiency in these games that I was once asked to give a
demonstration of lathi play before Mrs. Sarala Devi
Chowdhurani on the occasion of one of her visits. But Indra
Nandi was engaged in something much more serious; he was
trying to make bombs. And he ended by blowing up his
fingers in an explosion during a test. Caught in this maimed

1
I cannot now exactly recall if Bhupati Mohan had been at the Presidency
College right from the First Year class, or whether he joined the Third
Year from the Scottish Churches College, known at the time as the
General Assembly’s Institution.

2
condition, he was sent up for trial in the Alipore Bomb case,
although he could not be convicted. Our counsel managed to
prove that the state of his hands was due to their being crushed
under an iron chest.2
Let me in this connection announce one of the feats of my
college life. It was in that same year, 1905. Loud protests had
arisen on account of the Bengal Partition and there was going
to be observed a Day of Fasting or Rakhi Day or something
like that. In what manner did I register my protest? I went to
college dressed as if there had been a death in my family, that
is to say, without shoes or shirt and with only a dhoti and
chaddar on. As I entered the class, everybody seemed a little
stunned. The professor cast an occasional furtive glance at me
but said not a word. My action must have appeared as rather
unconventional, perhaps even incorrect to many, but I felt at
the same time there were quite a few who gave me an
admiring look.
At that time, in the class just above mine was Charu
Biswas. Next above him was Rajendraprasad, and a year
senior to Rajendraprasad there were Benoy Sarkar and Atul
Gupta. Ramesh Majumdar was perhaps a year junior to me.

2
But there was a rumour that Colonel Nandi had compounded with the
Government on condition that his son would thenceforward behave like
a thoroughly good boy.

3
 Now let me come back to what I was going to say —
revenons à nos moutons, as they say in French.
At a time like this, when the sky was getting red and the
air was hot, with so much agitation in the minds of men and
the young hearts, one of the Englishmen in our college,
Russell, our professor of logic and philosophy, got it into his
head to come out with something tactless against the
Bengalis. It was like a spark in a powder dump. There was
much excitement and agitation among the students. Could this
not be avenged? Should the white man be allowed to escape
scot-free, just like that? The day of reckoning came at last,
like a bolt from the blue. How did it all happen? One of our
classes had just ended and we were going to the next class
along the corridor, when all on a sudden there rang out all
over the place from a hundred lusty throats shouts of “Bande
Mataram” that tore the air with its mighty cry. Everybody ran
helter-skelter. “What is the matter? What happened?”
“Russell has been thrashed with shoe!” “Who thrashed him?
Who?”
The Principal came — it was Dr. P. K. Roy, the first
Bengali to have become Principal of the Presidency College,
though in a temporary capacity. We all got into our classes.
He entered our class first as it was nearest to the scene of the
incident. Russell was with him, his face red with shame and
indignation. He glanced around at those present in the class

4
and said that he could spot no one. After the class was over,
we went into the Physics Theatre for the physics class. There
too the Principal came in and broke out in a deep thundering
tone, “I see, ‘Bande Mataram’ has become a war-cry.” But
the whole class was utterly quiet, there was not a sign of
movement. All that high excitement and agitation of an hour
ago was now hushed in dumb motionless silence. We were all
a bunch of innocent lambs!
But who was the culprit? It was Ullaskar Dutt, one of our
class-fellows. He was a boarder at the Eden Hindu Hostel. He
had come to college with a slipper wrapped up in a newspaper
sheet and had made good use of it as soon as he got a
chance....
The life-story of this Ullaskar is a real drama, although its
last stage is rather tragic. Soon after this incident he joined the
Maniktolla Gardens with Barin Ghose and gave all his
thought and energy to the making of a bomb. He did not know
even the a-b-c of bombs. He read up by himself books on
chemistry, pieced out information from all kinds of books and
finally mastered all alone the principles of explosives —
nobody ever taught him. His father, Dwijadas Dutt, was a
professor at the Sibpur Engineering College. He had
something like a small laboratory at his residence. It was here
that Ullaskar took his training in secret. To what extent he had
finally succeeded in his efforts was proved one day when to

5
the first of his bombs one of our own men had to fall a martyr
— Prafulla Chakravarty.
I too had been an associate of his in this enterprise.
Ullaskar — “one who abounds in energy” — fully lived
up to his name: he was indeed an inexhaustible fount of
energy and enthusiasm. When they used to escort us in a
prison van from the jail to the court room (during the trial of
the Alipore Bomb case), we rent the air all the way with our
shouts and songs as we drove along. It was Ullaskar’s idea;
he led the chorus and the rest of us followed. Some of the old
refrains still ring in my ears, I can still recall the words — of
songs like “Deep From the Heart of Bengal Today”, “The
Soil, the Rivers of Bengal”, “My Golden Hindusthan”.
I have heard that Ullas is still alive, though almost
halfdead, they say. Ten or twelve years of jail in the
Andamans deranged him in body and mind. But this, after all,
was part of the ritual of sacrifice. As Barin used to say, “Such
indeed was the vow in this kind of marriage.”
For, the enthusiasm of that day, that reawakening to new
life, took no account whatever of the gains and the losses. It
forged ahead by itself, it drew its secret support from its own
momentum. That was why people gazed wide-eyed in
wonder, that was why they all joined in a mighty chorus:

“A day indeed has dawned

6
When a million hearts
Have known not to fear
And leave no debts unpaid.
Life and death are
Bondslaves at our feet;
Our hearts have forgotten to care.”

7
 2

Muraripukur
l

At last I made up my mind finally to take the plunge, that I

must now join the Maniktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. That
meant goodbye to College, goodbye to the ordinary life.
A little while ago, Prafulla Chakravarty had come and
joined. Both of us belonged to Rangpur, both were of nearly
the same age, and intimate friends. This too pushed me to my
decision.
I had already taken a vow about a year ago, in front of a
picture of Kali at a secret ceremony at dead of night, a vow
written out in blood drawn from the chest, that I should
dedicate my life to the whole-hearted service of the
Motherland. With me there was a companion, and also a local
leader who had read out the oath. This leader became a
Sannyasin later on and rose to be the head of a Math; he has
since given up his body, so I have heard. My companion of
that day is still alive; he did not give up the world and in fact
became a very successful man; at present he is enjoying his
rest in retirement.
I lived in a students’ boarding, one that had acquired quite
a name. Among the inmates were Atul Gupta, Charu

8
Bhattacharya (late of the Vishwabharati), and a little before
my time there was Naresh Chandra Sengupta. In my first year
of College, Atul Gupta was in his fourth year, Charu
Bhattacharya in his fifth and Naresh Sengupta had just passed
out. I happened once to set foot in the room he used to occupy
and there I found scattered about the floor a few pages torn
out of a notebook which read very much like love letters. This
seemed to me a little strange, but later I realised these were
some pages from the manuscript of one of his novels.
This decision to choose my path came while I was in my
Fourth Year. That I would definitely join the Gardens was
conveyed to Barin by Prafulla. He had already told him about
my antecedents, so one day I received a call — Barin would
see me, as if at an interview for a post. Escorted by Prafulla,
I arrived at his residence in Gopimohan Dutt Lane at
Goabagan. This place acquired some renown during the
Alipore case as a den of the terrorists. Next to the house there
was a gymnasium for the young men of the neighbourhood
where wrestling and boxing and all kinds of dangerous
martial exercises were practised.
This happened to be my first meeting with Barin. He
received me with great kindness and had me seated next to
him. I cannot now recall the details of the conversation we
had, but perhaps there was nothing much to remember. One
thing, however, I distinctly remember. He asked me if I had

9
read the Gita. I said I had read it in parts. He handed me a
copy and asked me to read aloud. I began reciting “Dharma-
kṣetre kuruksetre...” in a pure and undiluted Bengali style. He
stopped me and cried out, “That won’t do. One doesn’t read
Sanskrit here in the Bengali style. Listen, read like this.” He
gave a recital in the Hindi style, that is, with the pronunciation
current in the other parts of India.
That was my first lesson in Sanskrit pronounced in the
Sanskrit way. Later I have heard the correct Sanskrit accent
so often from Sri Aurobindo himself. I have heard him recite
from the Veda, from the Upanishads, from the Gita. Today, I
too do not read Sanskrit in the Bengali way, even when
reading from an article in Bengali.
It was settled that I would join the Gardens and stay there.
But I did not give up my rooms at the boarding. My books
and papers and furniture — a bedstead and the table-lamp, for
there was no electric light in those days — were all left in
charge of my roommate, and I paid only an occasional visit. I
attended College as well, but at infrequent intervals. College
studies could no longer interest me.
It was about this time that I hovered around the newly
founded National College in Calcutta for a short while. My
aims were a little “dubious”. At the Gardens, there used to be
discussions about the bomb, so an idea came to my head:
could not the National College offer an opportunity to study

10
the subject? I thought of reading Chemistry and by joining the
Chemistry practicals learn the principles of explosives. At
that time the Superintendent (or perhaps Principal) was Satish
Chandra Mukerji, Founder-President of the Dawn Society. I
had met him several years ago in the rooms of the Society.
Let me then narrate this earlier story in the present
connection. I had just come to Calcutta and joined the First
Year. Atul Gupta took me to a meeting of the Dawn Society.
Benoy Sarkar was there, Radha Kumud Mukerji too was
there, I think — not his younger brother Radha Kamal who
became one of my class-fellows in the Third Year after he had
passed the F.A. examination from Berhampore. Here is a
sketch of one of the Society’s meetings. Satish Mukerji took
the chair. We were about twenty or thirty young men in all.
He read out a verse from the Gita: yad yad vibhūtimat
sattvam, śrīmad-ūrjitameva vā, and gave a short explanation
in a few words. Then we formed ourselves into small groups
of four or five. We were to discuss what is meant by “śrīman”
and “vibhūtimān”, what is the difference between the two,
what do we understand by “ūrjita”? Each group was to
discuss separately, each member was to say what he had to
say, and finally each of us was to write out in the form of an
essay our viewpoint. The essays would then be submitted to
the chairman for his consideration and judgment. I sat
absolutely dumb in that first session, an ignoramus among the
learned, like a goose in the midst of swans. (I must have been

11
about fourteen at that time.) But I did not feel quite at ease in
that atmosphere, I had an impression it was all fine talk and
dry debate, purely academic, one would say. Satish Chandra
had no doubt wanted to use this as a means of forming the
character and not merely as an intellectual training, a way of
moulding the life, something that had been missing in our
college education. I do not know to what extent he succeeded
in actual fact.
This was about the middle of 1904. It was three years
later, about the middle of 1907, that I met Satish Chandra
again. He could not have remembered about me, nor did I
remind him. He asked me, “You are a student of literature and
philosophy. Why do you want to read Science?” “I have read
Physics and Chemistry for my F. A. (that is, Intermediate). I
have a special attraction for those subjects, that is why.”
However, the matter did not proceed very far, for I was
getting more and more engrossed in the life at the Gardens.
Almost about the same period, I had thought of another
childish plan, again in connection with the making of a bomb
— the thing had so got into my head. I was a student of the
Calcutta Presidency College where the great Jagadish
Chandra was professor at the time. Here was the idea and it
was approved by my leaders — could I not join his laboratory
as some kind of an assistant? Then I could carry on research
and experiments on bombs. But how to get hold of him? I

12
thought of Sister Nivedita. She was a great friend of Jagadish
Bose and it was easy to catch hold of Nivedita, for she was
one among our circle of acquaintances. But the occasion did
not arise for this line of advance, for things had been moving
fast at the Gardens.
Let me say a few words about our life there. But may I
preface it with an amusing incident? I have said that my
attendance at College had been getting more and more
irregular. This attracted the notice of some of my class-
fellows. One day, I found one of their representatives arriving
“on deputation” to meet me at the boarding. He began
questioning me as an intimate friend and well-wisher with a
show of great kindness and affection. “Tell me,” he said,
“what has been the matter with you? What makes you keep
away from College? Has there been a mishap somewhere?
You have been such a good student and so regular in your
attendance — what could have come over you all of a
sudden?” I could guess what he must have been suspecting:
surely it had something to do with my morals — chercher la
femme! Was that the case here? Complaints and entreaties
having failed, he finally sought to console and encourage me
with these words, “Don’t you worry. If Calcutta does not suit
you, let us leave the place and go somewhere else. The two of
us could stay together, and if we worked hard for, say, three
or four months, we would get ready for the examination
without fail. Our absence from College would make no

13
difference.” To this I replied in a grave tone, “Very well, I
shall think it over.” Lest there should be similar attacks in the
future, I practically gave up the boarding.
One would not say that life at the Gardens had settled
down to a definite routine yet, for we had just begun. There
were about a dozen or fourteen of us in all. There were
occasional visitors from outside who would come for a short
stay and then go back to their work. Naren Goswami had
come like that for a couple of days, so had Bhavabhushan who
later became a Sannyasin. We began with readings from the
Gita and this became almost a fixed routine where everybody
took part. Even the local Inspector of Police expressed a
desire to join in these readings with us Brahmacharins. But he
had to pay dearly for that. He did not realise that these were
no ordinary lessons in the Gita but served as a facade for our
preparations for the bomb. For this he was, we heard, later
dismissed from the service. The poor fellow had wanted to
acquire a bit of spiritual merit which seemed to turn against
him.
A beginning however was made to introduce some kind
of discipline and organisation. It was decided that the entire
group should be formed into two sections, one “civil”, the
other “military”. The “military” section was to include the
active members and the others were to serve as auxiliaries.
The idea originally was to build up an armed force, a regular

14
army in fact, with its full complement of weapons and
equipment and trained by regular drills. The “civil” side was
to deal with external work like journalism, propaganda and
recruitment. The Yugantar, and later the Navashakti, became
our publicity organs. I was not much attracted by this “civil”
side; I wanted to become one of the “military” men. Prafulla,
who was one of those dreamy, introvert, intellectual types and
a good writer and speaker, took up the “civil” work. They
used to say with a touch of humour, no doubt, that he was the
Mazzini and I was his Garibaldi. But no provision had yet
been made to give this Garibaldi the necessary training in
military drill or the use of weapons. So, I had to begin with
the science of warfare rather than its art. Barin was at that time
writing his series on “The Principles of Modern Warfare” for
the Yugantar. I too began my study of the subject. I started
going to the Imperial Library (now the National Library) in
Calcutta for my studies and research. Where could I begin?
Well, it was a book called The Art of War by the German
military expert, Clausewitz, a book where the very first
sentence ran like this, “The object of warfare is to destroy the
enemy and finish with him.” I am not sure how this helped
me add to my knowledge of warfare or my skill in the art of
fighting.
During my last days in College, I used to study Mazzini
in place of King John or The Faerie Queene. One day I
suddenly discovered that they had removed my Mazzini from

15
the shelves of the library, and even the Life and Death of
Socrates by Plato had disappeared. These books were no
doubt supposed to turn the heads of our Indian students!
About this time, I had been several times to my home
town Rangpur. There at the local library, I discovered a fine
book on the history of secret societies. The book gave the
story of how subject nations aspiring for freedom began their
work in secret. In it the story of Ireland and Russia had been
given a good deal of space. The secret societies in Russia had
a system which was rather distinctive. It should have been
taken over by us, so I have heard Sri Aurobindo say. They
would divide the underground workers into little groups of no
more than five. No group could know the others, only those
belonging to a particular group would know its own members.
Each group had a leader, who alone would know his
immediate superior, who was placed in charge of only four or
five of these little groups. Similarly, the leader of the higher
group would have dealings with the person next higher in
rank who would be in charge of the bigger groups, and so on,
right up to the topmost man. Such a system was necessary,
because if someone got caught, he could not implicate the
entire organisation but only a handful of his acquaintances.
One of the main instruments in the hands of the police or the
government for detecting a conspiracy is the confession
extracted from the persons caught, whether by torture,
temptation, sheer bravado or whatever other means. Under

16
that system, no one could know anybody except the few
members of his own group with whom he came into
immediate contact through his work, nor could he know
anything about the general plan of work; he had to carry out
only the part assigned to him.
At the Rangpur Library I came across another book,
namely, Gibbons famous Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire. I ran through the lengthy volumes from end to end
with tremendous enthusiasm and added a great deal to my
learning and knowledge. I had a hope that the book might
throw some light on how to bring about the “decline and fall”
of the British rule in India. I regret much help did not come
that way.
Now, to come back to the Gardens and our organisational
system. Nothing could be arranged by way of an armed force,
for our work itself took another turn. A military organisation
now gave place to a terrorist organisation. In the earlier
stages, we did not have much faith in terrorist methods, for,
as we had seen about Russia, this path led only to mutual
assassinations; murder and revenge seemed to follow in an
endless succession, leading to no final issue. That is why we
had decided on the military solution. To that end, our efforts
had been directed towards forming a new military force on
the one hand and on the other towards sowing the seeds of
revolt among the British Indian troops. I remember a military

17
police force stationed at Rangpur where the commandant had
been won over to a large extent, although I could not say how
it would have turned out at the end.
In the event, it was none of these methods that brought us
independence. Indian independence has come in another way,
the inscrutable way of Providence.
As I was saying, we gave up militarism and turned
towards the terrorist methods. There had awakened in the
country a keen demand and aspiration: Must we bear in
silence and give no answer to this tyranny and oppression that
seems to go on increasing day by day? So, we started getting
ready for a fitting reply. It brought in the first place a greater
courage to the general public, though it remained doubtful if
it helped relieve the oppression. And secondly, it gave some
satisfaction to men. Thus we directed our efforts to shooting
at the Lieutenant Governor, derailing his train, and
assassinating tyrants in the official ranks. Governor Andrew
Fraser, the District Magistrates Allen and Kingsford, Mayor
Tardivel of Chandernagore, these became the targets of the
terrorists. The members of the Maniktolla Garden group were
directly connected with these activities. But there is one thing
to be noticed about these attempts that at least in the earlier
stages almost all of them failed, with only one or two
exceptions.

18
 One of the activities of the Gardens, apart from the
attempts to manufacture bombs, had been to procure and
distribute guns and rifles and pistols. Purchase, theft and loot
were the three methods of procurement. In this manner one
might gather materials for terrorist purposes, but it could
hardly meet the needs of an armed force. At the Gardens there
was some shooting practice too, with pistols. The trunk of a
mango tree had been riddled with bullets — the police could
very easily find that out later. This reminds me of Prafulla
Chaki. He used to say taking a revolver in his hand, “I for one
am not going to live on if they get hold of me. I shall neither
be tortured by the police nor will I let their baits to confess
tempt me. Look, this is the way I am going to finish myself.”
He would then open wide his mouth, push in the revolver
muzzle and press the trigger with his fingers, adding, “This is
the one sure way. In the other methods, one merely wounds
oneself, very often with no serious danger to life. But it is
much more risky to live on after getting wounded, isn’t it?”
Prafulla committed suicide after the Muzzaffarpur bomb
affair in exactly the way he had rehearsed — I should not say
“suicide”, for it was really an act of martyrdom.
Now let me come out with some of my own exploits. I did
not, as I have said, want to be one of the law-abiding
“civilians”; my aim was to be a “military” man with his law
of the bomb. But first I must prove my mettle in that line. So,
they set me a test. I was to carry a pistol and deliver it to a

19
gentleman in Jalpaiguri. You seem to laugh at this instance of
my “military” ability. But perhaps you cannot now imagine
what it meant in those days to carry a real pistol. The police
had its secret agents all over the place always on the lookout
for victims. If you happened to be a young man, if you dressed
in a manner even slightly out of the ordinary, if there was
anything the least suspicious about your movements that
might attract attention, it was enough. If the police came and
searched you and found a lethal weapon like a revolver in
your possession, you would get at least seven years — of that
you might rest assured. Nevertheless, I managed to carry the
weapon in a perfectly easy and natural manner all the way to
North Bengal and reached it to the address given. This was
the way in which they used to distribute weapons for future
use to the different centres at various places.
Now that I had passed the first test almost without effort,
there came a second hurdle to cross. Will you be shocked to
hear that I was to join a gang of dacoits and take part in a real
dacoity? “Very well,” I said to myself, for everything is fair
in love and war — although I did feel somewhat
uncomfortable even without my knowing it, for there was
something about the whole affair that was not palatable to me.
But this had been decided upon as one of our methods of
collecting funds, for the money that came from gifts was not
sufficient, and people rather shied of making gifts for the
work of such secret societies. So we had to fix on loot. The

20
mail runner was to be waylaid and his bags looted, somewhat
far away in a place in the Khulna district. We left in a body
and put up with a friend. There we had to spend a couple of
days arranging to stitch up the bags, for the money had to be
carried back in bags, you see. But for some reason or other,
the plan fell through and I for one heaved a sigh of relief.
However there was one thing I had gained out of all this. It
was a glimpse I had of the river Kapotakshi, no longer limpid
like the “pigeon’s eye” though, for it was all cluttered up with
weeds — on whose banks stood the birthplace of Michael
Madhusudan and the mango grove where he used to play
about as a child. I did feel as if the breath of his poetry still
lingered about the atmosphere.
The household arrangements at our Gardens were of the
most simple, natural and unpretentious sort, the aim being to
avoid all unnecessary complications and save our time and
labour. The cooking was done perhaps only once a day and
almost every day it was khichari. For the second meal,
something readymade bought from the market was found
enough. We did the cooking ourselves and washed the dishes.
The dishes and utensils were not of brass; they were all
earthenware vessels, I believe. And the washing was done in
the waters of the pond. What kind of pond it was could only
be described by a Kalidasa, but perhaps some idea, could be
had from Bankimchandra’s description of the Bhima tank:
“the dark shades of the palms dancing to the rhythms of the

21
dark waters” and so on. That is to say, it had more weeds and
mud than water, not to speak of the fish and the frogs and
other animal species, including a fair complement of serpents
and things. But to us it seemed good enough and we used to
take our dips there with great glee. In fact I had my first
lessons in swimming in that very pool. There were actually
two pools and not one, and it would be difficult to decide
which was the more “untouchable” of the two. The gardens
around were in an equally poor condition. They were no
gardens at all, for all was primitive jungle, a tangle of shrubs
and trees and creepers, with all sorts of insects and reptiles
roaming within it. And the house where we lived was in
ruins.1
But in spite of all, the place was absolutely quiet and
silent, one reason being that it was practically outside the city
limits. The life we lived in such surroundings could be
compared with that of nomads. The strange thing is that
despite such irregular habits, or rather the habitual
irregularities of our life there, we never fell ill. The abundance

1
I went there once later. It was no longer the old Gardens but a ploughed
field. There was no trace of the jungle left, it had all been dug up. The
pools too had been drained and filled and the house razed to the ground.
The British authorities had dug up every inch of the area to see if any
weapons might have been kept hidden anywhere. I found in the case of
the Yugantar office also, which stood next to the Medical College, that
it had been pulled down and there was only a little plot of open ground
left in its place.

22
of vitality and the enthusiasm and joy kept at bay all attacks
of disease. It was very similar to the kind of life we lived here
in Pondicherry during the first few years. Motilal, when he
saw us then, exclaimed in utter surprise, “What! Is this the
way you live? And you keep him (Sri Aurobindo) too like
this?” Perhaps some day I may give you a picture of that life
of ours, that life of utter freedom which looked so rustic in the
eyes of “civilised” people.
Let me end this story today with something nice and
sweet. It was during my stay at the Gardens that I had my first
meeting and interview with Sri Aurobindo. Barin had asked
me to go and see him, saying that Sri Aurobindo would be
coming to see the Gardens and that I should fetch him.
Maniktolla was in those days at the far end of North Calcutta
and Sri Aurobindo lived with Raja Subodh Mullick near
Wellington Square in the South Calcutta area. I went by tram
and it was about four in the afternoon when I reached there. I
asked the doorman at the gate to send word to Mr. Ghose —
this was how he used to be called in those days at the place
— saying that I had come from Barin of the Maniktolla
Gardens. As I sat waiting in one of the rooms downstairs, Sri
Aurobindo came down, stood near me and gave me an
inquiring look. I said, in Bengali, “Barin has sent me. Would
it be possible for you to come to the Gardens with me now?”
He answered very slowly, pausing on each syllable separately
— it seemed he had not yet got used to speaking Bengali —

23
and said, “Go and tell Barin, I have not yet had my lunch. It
will not be possible to go today.” So, that was that. I did not
say a word, I did my namaskar and came away. This was my
first happy meeting with him, my first darsan and interview.

24
 3

Muraripukur
2

Now I come to the last phase of our life at Maniktolla

Gardens, when we turned towards terroristic activities like the
manufacture of bombs, collecting pistols and rifles and
making good use of them. The first chapter had already begun
with the Yugantar newspaper.
As we took up these revolutionary activities, we
discovered that it was not easy to carry on this kind of secret
work unless there was, common in the country as a whole, a
keen desire and hope for freedom. What was needed was a
favourable atmosphere in which the revolutionaries could get
the desired sympathy and support. One could expect nothing
but opposition from a people cowed down by fear, shut up
within its narrow selfishness and wholly preoccupied with its
dull routine. That is why Sri Aurobindo started his daily
newspaper, Bande Mataram, which was the first to declare in
clear language that what we wanted was the freedom of India,
a total freedom, a freedom untrammelled by any kind of
domination by the British. Its aim was to carry to the ears and
hearts of our people a message of hope and faith and
enthusiasm, a message that spoke of independence full and
absolute, not the kind that looked to England for protection
25
and help, and such independence too not as a distant
possibility of the remote future, but as an immediate gain of
the morrow.
Even so, Bande Mataram had to keep within the letter of
the law; its advocacy of freedom had to follow as far as
possible the lines of peace, its path had to be that of Passive
Resistance. But Yugantar shed off all the masks. It was the
first to declare openly for an armed revolt and spoke in terms
of regular warfare. It wrote out its message in words of fire
and spread it to the four corners of the land. Balthazar, the
king of Babylon, had once seen similar writings on the wall
of his hall of feasting, words that spoke of the imminent doom
of his empire. To the country and its youth the Yugantar gave
its initiation of fire for nearly a couple of years. It was only
after the Yugantar group decided that the time had now come
for action and not propaganda alone that there came to be
established the centre at Maniktolla Gardens in Muraripukur.
The section entrusted with real work and the people
concerned with propaganda were to form two distinct groups;
one was to work in secret, the other out in the open. Hence
the work of Yugantar was entrusted to the propaganda group.
The gentleman who took charge was Taranath Roy. Those
who had hitherto been on the staff of the paper left it and
joined the Maniktolla Gardens for intensive training and
work. It was however agreed that here too there would be two
groups, one for regular work and the other for propaganda.

26
Only, the propaganda here would be of a different kind, for
here it would not be possible to speak openly of armed revolt
as that would draw the attention of the authorities to the
regular workers. It was therefore decided to have a paper in
Bengali with a policy analogous to that of Bande Mataram. A
paper named Navashakti was already there, owned and
conducted by Sri Manoranjan Guhathakurta. It had a house
rented on Grey Street in North Calcutta. An understanding
was reached between the parties so that the spirit and letter of
Yugantar could continue in and through Navashakti. The
house was built more or less on the pattern of the one we had
later at Shyamapukur. There were two flats. The one in front
was used as the Navashakti office; Sri Aurobindo occupied
the other with his wife, Mrinalini.
A word about Manoranjan Guhathakurta will not be out
of place here. In that epoch Aswinikumar Dutt and
Manoranjan Guhathakurta of Barisal were two of the mighty
pillars of nationalism. But whatever their achievements as
political leaders and selfless patriots, as writers and orators, it
was their greatness of character that mattered more. By a great
character I mean one in whom there has awakened in a certain
measure and manifested to some extent the inner being and
the indwelling spirit; this is what Vivekananda used to call the
awakening of the Brahman in the individual. I had come to
know Sri Manoranjan Guhathakurta personally and I had
been to his house in Giridih and stayed with him more than

27
once. Giridih being not very far from Deoghar, he was aware
that we dabbled in the bomb. He was not only aware of it, he
also gave us all his help and sympathy. It had even been
suggested that a factory for the making of bombs might be
tried somewhere around the mica pits he owned in that region.
His eldest son Satyendra had been a schoolmate and friend of
Barin and the two were practically co-workers. This family
had helped Barin a good deal by their offers of money and
advice. But what I had in mind was not these external things
but an inner life. Manoranjan Guhathakurta had an inner life,
a life of sadhana His wife in particular was known for her
sadhana. In his eyes the service of the country was an
occasion and a means for the service of God. But his
saintliness or sadhana did not stand in the way of his strength
of character. In him there was a fine blend of strength and
sweetness.
Manoranjan’s son Chittaranjan became for a time a centre
of great excitement and violent agitation in those days. There
was a session of the Bengal Provincial Conference at Barisal
which was attended by all the leaders like Sri Aurobindo and
Bepin Pal. But there came a clash with the Government, the
police raided the pavilion and attacked the procession with
lathis. The boy Chittaranjan went on shouting “Bande
Mataram” as the police beat him mercilessly. He fell down
wounded and covered with blood but he did not cease his
“Bande Mataram”. This raised a furious storm of protest

28
throughout the country, which gave an opening to the
terrorists too.
This shining example of non-violent resistance occurred
long before the Gandhian era. To us who were in favour of
armed resistance this kind of forbearance seemed intolerable.
When, after this incident, the journalists and the poets began
to sing in chorus, of “Barisal of glorious virtue”, we could not
help adding with a little sting, “thanks to those beatings”.
I have said that Sri Aurobindo came to occupy with
Mrinalini a portion of the house on Grey Street. It was here
that they arrested him later. The Navashakti too did not last
long. In the course of their search, the police discovered in
one of the rooms occupied by Sri Aurobindo a lump of clay,
which Mrinalini had brought from Dakshineshwar as a sacred
relic. But the suspicions of the police were not to be allayed
so easily. They thought it might as well be some kind of raw
material for the manufacture of bombs, so they had it sent to
their chemical laboratories for chemical analysis!
Now let me come to the story of this final rounding up.
For some time past almost all of us had been noticing one
thing. Whenever we went out on any business, to shop or to
visit people, somebody seemed to be following us, from a
little distance, no doubt, but it was clear enough that we were
being watched. When we stopped, he too would stop; if we
tarried a little, he too kept himself occupied on some pretext

29
or other. We talked about this among ourselves and made the
great discovery that this must be what they called spying, and
that we must henceforth take extra precautions. So far, we had
never had this kind of trouble. Ours had been a secret society
only in name, for the whole thing was out in the open.
Anybody could enter the Gardens from anywhere at any time
and move about the place, for it was an open compound
without any fencing or walls. That is why on the morning of
our arrest, a couple of boys from the neighbourhood also
found themselves under arrest along with us. In piteous tones
they implored the policemen, “We are innocent, sirs; we came
here only for a morning stroll.” The poor innocents!
The evening before our arrest, it was already getting dark
and we were thinking of retiring for the night, when some
voices came to our ears in a rather peculiar way, and lanterns
were seen moving about in the dark. “Who are you? What do
you do here?” the voices said. We did our best to give evasive
replies. “Very well, then, we come again tomorrow morning
and will know more about it.” With these words, the strangers
seemed to make their exit. Were these warning voices? In
spite of our dull wits, we could understand at least this much,
that things were now getting rather serious and that we must
take our precautions. The first thing we decided was that we
should leave the place before daybreak and disperse. Upen
told us later that he had wanted us to disperse immediately
and make no further delay. But that was obviously not to be,

30
for it was destined that we should pass through the experience
of jail. Nevertheless, we did start doing something at once;
that was to remove all traces, by burning or hiding away or
whatever other means, of anything that might raise a
suspicion against us. The first thing that came to our heads
was this: There were two or three rifles in the house where Sri
Aurobindo lived. They were in the custody of Abinash
(Abinash Bhattacharya) who lived with him and looked after
Sri Aurobindo’s affairs. Those rifles must be removed at
once, they could on no account be left there. Had the police
found them on Sri Aurobindo’s premises, it might have been
more difficult to secure his release. The rifles were brought
back, they were packed in two boxes bound with iron hoops,
together with the few revolvers we had and all the materials
for the making of bombs, and hidden away underground.
Next, getting hold of all our papers that might contain names
and addresses and plans, we set fire to them. This went on far
into the night. We could not, however, burn everything. A
number of names were still left intact and with the help of
these clues, the police subsequently searched a number of
other places and made several arrests. Had I been able to make
good my escape then, it would not have been difficult for the
police to trace me through my address; there was the Imperial
Library card issued in my name and it gave the address of my
Calcutta boarding, 44/3 Harrison Road.

31
 We went to bed after doing away with all we could, in the
hope that we might run away by daybreak. But the running
away did not materialise. In the early hours of the morning —
it was not yet light — we were awakened by an eerie sort of
noise. We sat up in bed. But what was all this going on?
Shadowy forms were moving about the place, there was a
clatter and a creaking of boots. Suddenly out of the dark
silence, a conversation arose:
“You are under arrest. Your name?”
“Barindra Kumar Ghose.”
“Arabinda Ghose?”
“No, Barindra Kumar Ghose.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
The next thing I knew was a hand clapping on my
shoulders. “Come,” said a voice.
Several people have expressed great surprise at this facile
surrender on our part, as though we were goody-goody boys,
innocent as lambs. Why, it has been asked, did we not give
them fight and take a few lives before we surrendered? But
our aims were of another kind, our path, our very policy was
of another character. Our goal was not to die a martyr’s death.
We wanted to be soldiers. The martyr is happy if he can give
up his life. But the duty of the soldier is not to give his life but
to take the lives of others. The soldier seeks the maximum

32
protection for himself, he goes under cover, and he seeks to
kill as many of the enemy as he can. He does not think it
enough that he should only sacrifice himself. No doubt there
comes a time when it is no longer possible to find a shelter or
go under cover; it may not even be desirable. Then one throws
off one’s masks, comes out in the open and acts in the way so
vividly described in these lines of Rabindranath:

There began a scramble

As to who should be the first to give up his life;
That was the only hurry.

Or else, the way the Light Brigade of England acted at

Balaclava in the Crimean War:

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the valiant six hundred.

The Japanese soldiers too, in one of their encounters with the

Russians in the Russo-Japanese War, did not wait to build a
bridge over the ramparts of a ditch; they made a solid bridge
with the pile of their dead as they jumped in one after the other
and let the army march over their bodies. To save oneself does
not mean that one should, like Nandalal of the comic skit, take
a vow to “keep oneself alive at any cost, for the good of the
country and all”, or live by the bourgeois doctrine that one

33
should always save oneself somehow, even by the sacrifice of
one’s wife, ātmānam satatam rakṣet dārairapi dhanairapi.
That is why we used to tease Paresh Mallick and called
him a descendant of Nandalal. Have I told you the story? He
was once deputed to present Kingsford, the Presidency
Magistrate, with a live bomb packed in the form of a book;
the bomb was to explode as soon as the book was opened.
Paresh went in the garb of an Englishman’s bearer. We looked
out every day for an account in the papers of some serious
accident to Kingsford. But nothing happened. He seemed to
be attending court regularly and was apparently quite safe and
sound. So we had to ask Paresh at last if he had in fact reached
the bomb to its destination or whether he had thrown it away
somewhere to save his own skin. However, the book-bomb
was found later among a pile of books belonging to the
Magistrate. It had been lying there safely, unopened, and
caused no harm. People were demanding vengeance upon
Kingsford because he had sentenced a young student, Sushil,
to flogging, simply because the boy was involved in a tussle
with the police. That was an occasion for us terrorists. Sushil
later on joined the revolutionary group at Maniktolla.
The police, on more than one occasion, suggested to Sri
Aurobindo, so that he might feel flattered or perhaps even get
excited and be moved to act according to their wishes, that a
strong and truthful and straightforward man like him would
certainly not adopt a false pose or act in secret; that he had the
34
courage to do openly whatever he considered to be his duty
or the right thing to do; that he would never care to run away
and hide himself; and that whatever he did he would frankly
acknowledge and say without hesitation, “Yes, it is I who
have done it.” But Sri Aurobindo was not to be trapped like
that. He held that far more important than any question of
personal honour or indignity, or a parading of one’s capacity
or virtue, was the work to be done and its success. He would
cite the example of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata story; Sri
Krishna had no intention of being caught by Jarasandha and
he fled to Dwarka in order to make ready for the adversary.
That is why Sri Aurobindo did not consider a retreat to be a
bad thing always. “We live to fight another day”: this should
be the motto of the soldier. That is why he left standing
instructions with Barin and his group that they were not to
admit anything immediately if they were caught by the police.
They should keep their mouths shut and make whatever
statements were necessary only when the time came at a later
stage. It is however true that Barin and some of the senior
members of the group did make a full confession soon after
their arrest. But they did that purposely, with a view to save
the party by the sacrifice of some of its members. They had
hoped that by taking on themselves all the responsibility, the
others might be proved to have been innocent, so that instead
of all of us dying together, some might still live on to carry
the work forward.

35
 Nevertheless, we were all arrested in a body. The police
made us stand in a line under the strict watch of an armed
guard. They kept us standing the whole day with hardly
anything to eat. Only towards the evening, some of them were
kind enough to get us some fried stuff from the market. Our
throats were so dry by the time that we would have gladly
taken a sip out of that famous pond of ours. In the evening,
the order came, “Follow us.” But follow where? I somehow
had the feeling that here was the end: “Remember, O soul, the
day of the Great Departure.” I could not conceive at the
moment that a case would have to be framed against us, that
there must take place a trial and there might be a counsel to
defend us. I thought on the contrary that they would take us
straight to Fort William and finish us off with a firing squad!
I was in fact getting myself ready for that. But things turned
out rather differently. The British Government could not be
so heartless after all. We were taken to the lock-up at the Lal
Bazar police station. There they kept us for nearly two days
and nights. This was perhaps the most trying time of all. We
had no bath, no food, not even a wink of sleep. The whole lot
of us were herded together like beasts and shut up in a cell.
The police showed by their manner how rude and bitter they
could be. Then, after having been through all this, we were
taken to Alipore Jail one evening. There we were received
with great kindness and courtesy by the gentleman in charge.
He said, “Now there will be no more of that harassment by

36
the police. You will find it quite comfortable here.” And he
had us served immediately with hot cooked rice. This was our
first meal in three days, and it tasted so nice and sweet that
we felt as if we were in heaven.

37
 4
Deoghar

The scene was Deoghar, though not exactly the town itself.
About five miles before you reach the town, there is the
Jesidih Junction on the main railway line. Nearly a mile from
there, close to the railway line there was a house with only a
ground floor and quite neat and clean on the whole. All
around were open fields — not the green meadows of Bengal
but the barren red moorlands of Bihar. Not entirely unpleasant
scenery though, for it breathed an atmosphere of purity and
peace and silence. A little farther away there stood a larger
two-storeyed mansion, perhaps the comfortable holiday
retreat of some rich man.
The time was towards the end of 1907 and the beginning
of 1908. I was about seventeen or eighteen and had just
finished with my college life.
The dramatis personae were (1) Barindra Kumar Ghose,
(2) Ullaskar Dutt, (3) Prafulla Kumar Chakravarty, (4)
Bibhuti Bhusan Sarkar, and (5) Nolini Kanta Gupta.
The plot was to manufacture bombs. Hitherto, there had
been only preliminary investigations and initial experiments
and efforts. Now Ullaskar came out with his Eureka. “All is

38
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
to him now, T. J., and hint around about how his church has insulted
him?”
“All right, Elmer. Another soul saved. Brother Styles has still got
the first dollar he ever earned, but maybe we can get ten cents of it
away from him for the new church. Only—Him being so much richer
than I, I hope you won’t go to him for spiritual advice and inspiration,
instead of me.”
“You bet I won’t, T. J.! Nobody has ever accused Elmer Gantry of
being disloyal to his friends! My only hope is that your guidance of
this church has been of some value to you yourself.”
“Well—yes—in a way. I’ve had three brother Methodist clients
from Wellspring come to me—two burglary and one forgery. But it’s
more that I just like to make the wheels go round.”
Mr. Rigg was saying, an hour later, to Mr. William Dollinger
Styles, “If you came and joined us, I know you’d like it—you’ve seen
what a fine, upstanding, two-fisted, one-hundred-percent he-man Dr.
Gantry is. Absolutely sound about business. And it would be a swell
rebuke to your church for not accepting your advice. But we hate to
invite you to come over to us—in fact Dr. Gantry absolutely forbade
me to see you—for fear you’ll think it was just because you’re rich.”
For three days Styles shied, then he was led, trembling, up to the
harness.
Afterward, Dr. G. Prosper Edwards of Pilgrim Congregational said
to his spouse, “Why on earth didn’t we think of going right after
Styles and inviting him to join us? It was so simple we never even
thought of it. I really do feel quite cross. Why didn’t you think of it?”

VII
The second church meeting was postponed. It looked to Elmer as
though Frank would be able to stay on at Dorchester Congregational
and thus defy Elmer as the spiritual and moral leader of the city.
Elmer acted fearlessly.
In sermon after sermon he spoke of “that bunch of atheists out
there at Dorchester.” Frank’s parishioners were alarmed. They were
forced to explain (only they were never quite sure what they were
explaining) to customers, to neighbors, to fellow lodge-members.
They felt disgraced, and so it was that a second meeting was called.
Now Frank had fancied a spectacular resignation. He heard
himself, standing before a startled audience, proclaiming, “I have
decided that no one in this room, including your pastor, believes in
the Christian religion. Not one of us would turn the other cheek. Not
one of us would sell all that he has and give to the poor. Not one of
us would give his coat to some man who took his overcoat. Every
one of us lays up all the treasure he can. We don’t practise the
Christian religion. We don’t intend to practise it. Therefore, we don’t
believe in it. Therefore I resign, and I advise you to quit lying and
disband.”
He saw himself, then, tramping down the aisle among his gaping
hearers, and leaving the church forever.
But: “I’m too tired. Too miserable. And why hurt the poor
bewildered souls? And—— I am so tired.”
He stood up at the beginning of the second meeting and said
gently, “I had refused to resign. I still feel I have an honest right to an
honest pulpit. But I am setting brother against brother. I am not a
Cause—I am only a friend. I have loved you and the work, the sound
of friends singing together, the happiness of meeting on leisurely
Sunday mornings. This I give up. I resign, and I wish I could say,
‘God be with you and bless you all.’ But the good Christians have
taken God and made him into a menacing bully, and I cannot even
say ‘God bless you,’ during this last moment, in a life given
altogether to religion, when I shall ever stand in a pulpit.”
Elmer Gantry, in his next sermon, said that he was so broad-
minded that he would be willing to receive an Infidel Shallard in his
church, providing he repented.

VIII
When he found that he liked the Charity Organization Society and
his work in that bleak institution no better than his work in the church,
Frank laughed.
 “As Bess said! A consistent malcontent! Well, I am consistent,
anyway. And the relief not to be a preacher any more! Not to have to
act sanctimonious! Not to have men consider you an old woman in
trousers! To be able to laugh without watching its effect!”
Frank was given charge, at the C. O. S., of a lodging-house, a
woodyard at which hoboes worked for two hours daily to pay for
lodging and breakfast, and an employment bureau. He knew little
about Scientific Charity, so he was shocked by the icy manner in
which his subordinates—the aged virgin at the inquiry desk, the boss
of the woodyard, the clerk at the lodging-house, the young lady who
asked the applicants about their religion and vices—treated the
shambling unfortunates as criminals who had deliberately committed
the crime of poverty.
They were as efficient and as tender as vermin-exterminators.
In this acid perfection, Frank longed for the mystery that clings to
even the dourest or politest tabernacle. He fell in the way of going
often to the huge St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, of which the
eloquent Father de Pinna was pastor, with Father Matthew Smeesby,
the new sort of American, state-university-bred priest, as assistant
pastor and liaison officer.
St. Dominic’s was, for Zenith, an ancient edifice, and the coal-
smoke from the South Zenith factories had aged the gray stone to a
semblance of historic centuries. The interior, with its dim irregularity,
its lofty roof, the curious shrines, the mysterious door at the top of a
flight of stone steps, unloosed Frank’s imagination. It touched him to
see the people kneeling at any hour. He had never known a church
to which the plain people came for prayer. Despite its dusky
magnificence, they seemed to find in the church their home. And
when he saw the gold and crimson of solemn high mass blazing at
the end of the dark aisle, with the crush of people visibly believing in
the presence of God, he wondered if he had indeed found the
worship he had fumblingly sought.
He knew that to believe literally in Purgatory and the Immaculate
Conception, the Real Presence and the authority of the hierarchy,
was as impossible for him as to believe in Zeus.
 “But,” he pondered, “isn’t it possible that the whole thing is so
gorgeous a fairy-tale that to criticize it would be like trying to prove
that Jack did not kill the giant? No sane priest could expect a man of
some education to think that saying masses had any effect on souls
in Purgatory; they’d expect him to take the whole thing as one takes
a symphony. And, oh, I am lonely for the fellowship of the church!”
He sought a consultation with Father Matthew Smeesby. They
had met, as fellow ministers, at many dinners.
The good father sat at a Grand Rapids desk, in a room altogether
business-like save for a carved Bavarian cupboard and a crucifix on
the barren plaster wall. Smeesby was a man of forty, a crisper Philip
McGarry.
“You were an American university man, weren’t you, Father?”
Frank asked.
“Yes. University of Indiana. Played half-back.”
“Then I think I can talk to you. It seems to me that so many of
your priests are not merely foreign by birth, Poles and whatnot, but
they look down on American mores and want to mold us to their
ideas and ways. But you—— Tell me: Would it be conceivable for an
—I won’t say an intelligent, but at least a reasonably well-read man
like myself, who finds it quite impossible to believe one word of your
doctrines—”
“Huh!”
“—but who is tremendously impressed by your ritual and the spirit
of worship—could such a man be received into the Roman Catholic
Church, honestly, with the understanding that to him your dogmas
are nothing but symbols?”
“Most certainly not!”
“Don’t you know any priests who love the Church but don’t
literally believe all the doctrines?”
“I do not! I know no such persons! Shallard, you can’t understand
the authority and reasonableness of the Church. You’re not ready to.
You think too much of your puerile powers of reasoning. You haven’t
enough divine humility to comprehend the ages of wisdom that have
gone to building up this fortress, and you stand outside its walls, one
pitifully lonely little figure, blowing the trumpet of your egotism, and
demanding of the sentry, ‘Take me to your commander. I am
graciously inclined to assist him. Only he must understand that I
think his granite walls are pasteboard, and I reserve the right to blow
them down when I get tired of them.’ Man, if you were a prostitute or
a murderer and came to me saying ‘Can I be saved?’ I’d cry ‘Yes!’
and give my life to helping you. But you’re obsessed by a worse
crime than murder—pride of intellect! And yet you haven’t such an
awfully overpowering intellect to be proud of, and I’m not sure but
that’s the worst crime of all! Good-day!”
He added, as Frank ragingly opened the door, “Go home and
pray for simplicity.”
“Go home and pray that I may be made like you? Pray to have
your humility and your manners?” said Frank.
It was a fortnight later that for his own satisfaction Frank set down
in the note-book which he had always carried for sermon ideas,
which he still carried for the sermons they would never let him
preach again, a conclusion:
“The Roman Catholic Church is superior to the militant Protestant
Church. It does not compel you to give up your sense of beauty, your
sense of humor, or your pleasant vices. It merely requires you to give
up your honesty, your reason, your heart and soul.”

IX
Frank had been with the Charity Organization Society for three
years, and he had become assistant general secretary at the time of
the Dayton evolution trial. It was at this time that the brisker
conservative clergymen saw that their influence and oratory and
incomes were threatened by any authentic learning. A few of them
were so intelligent as to know that not only was biology dangerous to
their positions, but also history—which gave no very sanctified
reputation to the Christian church; astronomy—which found no
convenient Heaven in the skies and snickered politely at the notion
of making the sun stand still in order to win a Jewish border skirmish;
psychology—which doubted the superiority of a Baptist preacher
fresh from the farm to trained laboratory researchers; and all the
other sciences of the modern university. They saw that a proper
school should teach nothing but bookkeeping, agriculture, geometry,
dead languages made deader by leaving out all the amusing
literature, and the Hebrew Bible as interpreted by men superbly
trained to ignore contradictions, men technically called
“Fundamentalists.”
This perception the clergy and their most admired laymen
expressed in quick action. They formed half a dozen competent and
well-financed organizations to threaten rustic state legislators with
political failure and bribe them with unctuous clerical praise, so that
these back-street and backwoods Solons would forbid the teaching
in all state-supported schools and colleges of anything which was
not approved by the evangelists.
It worked edifyingly.
To oppose them there were organized a few groups of scholars.
One of these organizations asked Frank to speak for them. He was
delighted to feel an audience before him again, and he got leave
from the Zenith Charity Organization Society for a lecture tour.
He came excitedly and proudly to his first assignment, in a
roaring modern city in the Southwest. He loved the town; believed
really that he came to it with a “message.” He tasted the Western air
greedily, admired the buildings flashing up where but yesterday had
been prairie. He smiled from the hotel ’bus when he saw a poster
which announced that the Reverend Frank Shallard would speak on
“Are the Fundamentalists Witch Hunters?” at Central Labor Hall,
auspices of the League for Free Science.
“Bully! Fighting again! I’ve found that religion I’ve been looking
for!”
He peered out for other posters. . . . They were all defaced.
At his hotel was a note, typed, anonymous: “We don’t want you
and your hellish atheism here. We can think for ourselves without
any imported ‘liberals.’ If you enjoy life, you’d better be out of this
decent Christian city before evening. God help you if you aren’t! We
have enough mercy to give warning, but enough of God’s justice to
see you get yours right if you don’t listen. Blasphemers get what they
ask for. We wonder if you would like the feeling of a blacksnake
across your lying face? The Committee.”
Frank had never known physical conflict more violent than
boyhood wrestling. His hand shook. He tried to sound defiant with:
“They can’t scare me!”
His telephone, and a voice: “This Shallard? Well this is a brother
preacher speaking. Name don’t matter. I just want to tip you off that
you’d better not speak tonight. Some of the boys are pretty rough.”
Then Frank began to know the joy of anger.
The hall of his lecture was half filled when he looked across the
ice-water pitcher on the speaker’s table. At the front were the
provincial intellectuals, most of them very eager, most of them
dreadfully poor: a Jewish girl librarian with hungry eyes, a crippled
tailor, a spectacled doctor sympathetic to radical disturbances but
too good a surgeon to be driven out of town. There was a waste of
empty seats, then, and at the back a group of solid, prosperous,
scowling burghers, with a leonine man who was either an actor, a
congressman, or a popular clergyman.
This respectable group grumbled softly, and hissed a little as
Frank nervously began.
America, he said, in its laughter at the “monkey trial” at Dayton,
did not understand the veritable menace of the Fundamentalists’
crusade. (“Outrageous!” from the leonine gentleman.) They were
mild enough now; they spoke in the name of virtue; but give them
rope, and there would be a new Inquisition, a new hunting of
witches. We might live to see men burned to death for refusing to
attend Protestant churches.
Frank quoted the Fundamentalist who asserted that evolutionists
were literally murderers, because they killed orthodox faith, and
ought therefore to be lynched; William Jennings Bryan, with his
proposal that any American who took a drink outside the country
should be exiled for life.
 “That’s how these men speak, with so little power—as yet!” Frank
pleaded. “Use your imaginations! Think how they would rule this
nation, and compel the more easy-going half-liberal clergy to work
with them, if they had the power!”
There were constant grunts of “That’s a lie!” and “They ought to
shut him up!” from the back, and now Frank saw marching into the
hall a dozen tough young men. They stood ready for action, looking
expectantly toward the line of prosperous Christian Citizens.
“And you have here in your own city,” Frank continued, “a
minister of the gospel who enjoys bellowing that any one who
disagrees with him is a Judas.”
“That’s enough!” cried some one at the back, and the young
toughs galloped down the aisle toward Frank, their eyes hot with
cruelty, teeth like a fighting dog’s, hands working—he could feel
them at his neck. They were met and held a moment by the
sympathizers in front. Frank saw the crippled tailor knocked down by
a man who stepped on the body as he charged on.
With a curious lassitude more than with any fear, Frank sighed,
“Hang it, I’ve got to join the fight and get killed!”
He started down from the platform.
The chairman seized his shoulder. “No! Don’t! You’ll get beaten to
death! We need you! Come here—come here! This back door!”
Frank was thrust through a door into a half-lighted alley.
A motor was waiting, and by it two men, one of whom cried,
“Right in here, Brother.”
It was a large sedan; it seemed security, life. But as Frank started
to climb in he noted the man at the wheel, then looked closer at the
others. The man at the wheel had no lips but only a bitter dry line
across his face—the mouth of an executioner. Of the other two, one
was like an unreformed bartender, with curly mustache and a
barber’s lock; one was gaunt, with insane eyes.
“Who are you fellows?” he demanded.
“Shut your damned trap and get t’ hell in there!” shrieked the
bartender, pushing Frank into the back of the car, so that he fell with
his head on the cushion.
The insane man scrambled in, and the car was off.
“We told you to get out of town. We gave you your chance. By
God, you’ll learn something now, you God damned atheist—and
probably a damn’ socialist or I. W. W. too!” the seeming bartender
said. “See this gun?” He stuck it into Frank’s side, most painfully.
“We may decide to let you live if you keep your mouth shut and do
what we tell you to—and again we may not. You’re going to have a
nice ride with us! Just think what fun you’re going to have when we
get you in the country—alone—where it’s nice and dark and quiet!”
He placidly lifted his hands and gouged Frank’s cheek with his
strong fingernails.
“I won’t stand it!” screamed Frank.
He rose, struggling. He felt the gaunt fanatic’s fingers—just two
fingers, demon-strong—close on his neck, dig in with pain that made
him sick. He felt the bartender’s fist smashing his jaw. As he
slumped down, limp against the forward seat, half-fainting, he heard
the bartender chuckle:
“That’ll give the blank, blank, blank of a blank some idea of the
fun we’ll have watching him squirm bimeby!”
The gaunt one snapped, “The boss said not to cuss.”
“Cuss, hell! I don’t pretend to be any tin angel. I’ve done a lot of
tough things. But, by God, when a fellow pretending to be a minister
comes sneaking around trying to make fun of the Christian religion—
the only chance us poor devils have got to become decent again—
then, by God, it’s time to show we’ve got some guts and
appreciation!”
The pseudo-bartender spoke with the smugly joyous tones of any
crusader given a chance to be fiendish for a moral reason, and
placidly raising his leg, he brought his heel down on Frank’s instep.
When the cloud of pain had cleared from his head, Frank sat
rigid. . . . What would Bess and the kids do if these men killed him?
. . . Would they beat him much before he died?
 The car left the highway, followed a country road and ran along a
lane, through what seemed to Frank to be a cornfield. It stopped by a
large tree.
“Get out!” snapped the gaunt man.
Mechanically, his legs limp, Frank staggered out. He looked up at
the moon. “It’s the last time I’ll ever see the moon—see the stars—
hear voices. Never again to walk on a fresh morning!”
“What are you going to do?” he said, hating them too much to be
afraid.
“Well, dearie,” said the driver, with a dreadful jocosity, “you’re
going to take a little walk with us, back here in the fields a ways.”
“Hell!” said the bartender, “let’s hang him. Here’s a swell tree.
Use the tow-rope.”
“No,” from the gaunt man. “Just hurt him enough so he’ll
remember, and then he can go back and tell his atheist friends it ain’t
healthy for ’em in real Christian parts. Move, you!”
Frank walked in front of them, ghastly silent. They followed a path
through the cornfield to a hollow. The crickets were noisily cheerful;
the moon serene.
“This’ll do,” snarled the gaunt one; then to Frank: “Now get ready
to feel good.”
He set his pocket electric torch on a clod of earth. In its light
Frank saw him draw from his pocket a coiled black leather whip, a
whip for mules.
“Next time,” said the gaunt one, slowly, “next time you come back
here, we’ll kill you. And any other yellow traitor and stinker and
atheist like you. Tell ’em all that! This time we won’t kill you—not
quite.”
“Oh, quit talking and let’s get busy!” said the bartender.
“All right!”
The bartender caught Frank’s two arms behind, bending them
back, almost breaking them, and suddenly with a pain appalling and
unbelievable the whip slashed across Frank’s cheek, cutting it, and
instantly it came again—again—in a darkness of reeling pain.
 X
Consciousness returned waveringly as dawn crawled over the
cornfield and the birds were derisive. Frank’s only clear emotion was
a longing to escape from this agony by death. His whole face reeked
with pain. He could not understand why he could scarce see. When
he fumblingly raised his hand, he discovered that his right eye was a
pulp of blind flesh, and along his jaw he could feel the exposed bone.
He staggered along the path through the cornfield, stumbling
over hummocks, lying there sobbing, muttering, “Bess—oh, come—
Bess!”
His strength lasted him just to the highroad, and he sloped to
earth, lay by the road like a drunken beggar. A motor was coming,
but when the driver saw Frank’s feebly uplifted arm he sped on.
Pretending to be hurt was a device of hold-up men.
“Oh, God, won’t anybody help me?” Frank whimpered, and
suddenly he was laughing, a choking twisted laughter. “Yes, I said it,
Philip—‘God’ I said—I suppose it proves I’m a good Christian!”
He rocked and crawled along the road to a cottage. There was a
light—a farmer at early breakfast. “At last!” Frank wept. When the
farmer answered the knock, holding up a lamp, he looked once at
Frank, then screamed and slammed the door.
An hour later a motorcycle policeman found Frank in the ditch, in
half delirium.
“Another drunk!” said the policeman, most cheerfully, snapping
the support in place on his cycle. But as he stooped and saw Frank’s
half-hidden face, he whispered, “Good God Almighty!”

XI
The doctors told him that though the right eye was gone
completely, he might not entirely lose the sight of the other for
perhaps a year.
Bess did not shriek when she saw him; she only stood with her
hands shaky at her breast.
 She seemed to hesitate before kissing what had been his mouth.
But she spoke cheerfully:
“Don’t you worry about a single thing. I’ll get a job that’ll keep us
going. I’ve already seen the general secretary at the C. O. S. And
isn’t it nice that the kiddies are old enough now to read aloud to you.”
To be read aloud to, the rest of his life . . .

XII
Elmer called and raged, “This is the most outrageous thing I’ve
ever heard of in my life, Frank! Believe me, I’m going to give the
fellows that did this to you the most horrible beating they ever got,
right from my pulpit! Even though it may hinder me in getting money
for my new church—say, we’re going to have a bang-up plant there,
right up to date, cost over half a million dollars, seat over two
thousand. But nobody can shut me up! I’m going to denounce those
fiends in a way they’ll never forget!”
And that was the last Elmer is known ever to have said on the
subject, privately or publicly.
 CHAPTER XXX

I
the Reverend Elmer Gantry was in his oak and Spanish leather
study at the great new Wellspring Church.
The building was of cheerful brick, trimmed with limestone. It had
Gothic windows, a carillon in the square stone tower, dozens of
Sunday School rooms, a gymnasium, a social room with a stage and
a motion-picture booth, an electric range in the kitchen, and over it
all a revolving electric cross and a debt.
But the debt was being attacked. Elmer had kept on the
professional church-money-raiser whom he had employed during the
campaign for the building fund. This financial crusader was named
Emmanuel Navitsky; he was said to be the descendant of a noble
Polish Catholic family converted to Protestantism; and certainly he
was a most enthusiastic Christian—except possibly on Passover
Eve. He had raised money for Presbyterian Churches, Y. M. C. A.
buildings, Congregational Colleges, and dozens of other holy
purposes. He did miracles with card indices of rich people; and he is
said to have been the first ecclesiastical go-getter to think of inviting
Jews to contribute to Christian temples.
Yes, Emmanuel would take care of the debt, and Elmer could
give himself to purely spiritual matters.
He sat now in his study, dictating to Miss Bundle. He was happy
in the matter of that dowdy lady, because her brother, a steward in
the church, had recently died, and he could presently get rid of her
without too much discord.
To him was brought the card of Loren Latimer Dodd, M. A., D. D.,
LL. D., president of Abernathy College, an institution of Methodist
learning.
“Hm,” Elmer mused. “I bet he’s out raising money. Nothing doing!
What the devil does he think we are!” and aloud: “Go out and bring
Dr. Dodd right in, Miss Bundle. A great man! A wonderful educator!
You know—president of Abernathy College!”
 Looking her admiration at a boss who had such distinguished
callers, Miss Bundle bundled out.
Dr. Dodd was a florid man with a voice, a Kiwanis pin, and a
handshake.
“Well, well, well, Brother Gantry, I’ve heard so much of your
magnificent work here that I ventured to drop in and bother you for a
minute. What a magnificent church you have created! It must be a
satisfaction, a pride! It’s—magnificent!”
“Thanks, Doctor. Mighty pleased to meet you. Uh. Uh. Uh.
Visiting Zenith?”
“Well, I’m, as it were, on my rounds.”
(“Not a cent, you old pirate!”) “Visiting the alumni, I presume.”
“In a way. The fact is I—”
(“Not one damn’ cent. My salary gets raised next!”)
“—was wondering if you would consent to my taking a little time
at your service Sunday evening to call to the attention of your
magnificent congregation the great work and dire needs of
Abernathy. We have such a group of earnest young men and women
—and no few of the boys going into the Methodist ministry. But our
endowment is so low, and what with the cost of the new athletic field
—though I am delighted to be able to say our friends have made it
possible to create a really magnificent field, with a fine cement
stadium—but it has left us up against a heart-breaking deficit. Why,
the entire chemistry department is housed in two rooms in what was
a cow-shed! And—
“Can’t do it, doctor. Impossible. We haven’t begun to pay for this
church. Be as much as my life is worth to go to my people with a
plea for one extra cent. But possibly in two years from now
—— Though frankly,” and Elmer laughed brightly, “I don’t know why
the people of Wellspring should contribute to a college which hasn’t
thought enough of Wellspring’s pastor to give him a Doctor of Divinity
degree!”
The two holy clerks looked squarely at each other, with poker
faces.
 “Of course, Doctor,” said Elmer, “I’ve been offered the degree a
number of times, but by small, unimportant colleges, and I haven’t
cared to accept it. So you can see that this is in no way a hint that I
would like such a degree. Heaven forbid! But I do know it might
please my congregation, make them feel Abernathy was their own
college, in a way.”
Dr. Dodd remarked serenely, “Pardon me if I smile! You see I had
a double mission in coming to you. The second part was to ask you if
you would honor Abernathy by accepting a D.D.!”
They did not wink at each other.
Elmer gloated to himself, “And I’ve heard it cost old Mahlon Potts
six hundred bucks for his D. D.! Oh, yes, Prexy, we’ll begin to raise
money for Abernathy in two years—we’ll begin!”

II
The chapel of Abernathy College was full. In front were the
gowned seniors, looking singularly like a row of arm-chairs covered
with dust-cloths. On the platform, with the president and the senior
members of the faculty, were the celebrities whose achievements
were to be acknowledged by honorary degrees.
Besides the Reverend Elmer Gantry, these distinguished guests
were the Governor of the state—who had started as a divorce lawyer
but had reformed and enabled the public service corporations to
steal all the water-power in the state; Mr. B. D. Swenson, the
automobile manufacturer, who had given most of the money for the
Abernathy football stadium; and the renowned Eva Evaline Murphy,
author, lecturer, painter, musician, and authority on floriculture, who
was receiving a Litt. D. for having written (gratis) the new Abernathy
College Song:
We’ll think of thee where’er we be,
On plain or mountain, town or sea,
Oh, let us sing how round us clings,
Dear Abernathy, thoooooooooughts—of—thee.
President Dodd was facing Elmer, and shouting:
 “—and now we have the privilege of conferring the degree of
Doctor of Divinity upon one than whom no man in our honored
neighboring state of Winnemac has done more to inculcate sound
religious doctrine, increase the power of the church, uphold high
standards of eloquence and scholarship, and in his own life give
such an example of earnestness as is an inspiration to all of us!”
They cheered—and Elmer had become the Reverend Dr. Gantry.

III
It was a great relief at the Rotary Club. They had long felt
uncomfortable in calling so weighty a presence “Elmer,” and now,
with a pride of their own in his new dignity, they called him “Doc.”
The church gave him a reception and raised his salary to
seventy-five hundred dollars.

IV
The Rev. Dr. Gantry was the first clergyman in the state of
Winnemac, almost the first in the country, to have his services
broadcast by radio. He suggested it himself. At that time, the one
broadcasting station in Zenith, that of the Celebes Gum and Chicle
Company, presented only jazz orchestras and retired sopranos, to
advertise the renowned Jolly Jack Gum. For fifty dollars a week
Wellspring Church was able to use the radio Sunday mornings from
eleven to twelve-thirty. Thus Elmer increased the number of his
hearers from two thousand to ten thousand—and in another pair of
years it would be a hundred thousand.
Eight thousand radio-owners listening to Elmer Gantry—
A bootlegger in his flat, coat off, exposing his pink silk shirt, his
feet up on the table. . . . The house of a small-town doctor, with the
neighbors come in to listen—the drug-store man, his fat wife, the
bearded superintendent of schools. . . . Mrs. Sherman Reeves of
Royal Ridge, wife of one of the richest young men in Zenith, listening
in a black-and-gold dressing-gown, while she smoked a
cigarette. . . . The captain of a schooner, out on Lake Michigan,
hundreds of miles away, listening in his cabin. . . . The wife of a
farmer in an Indiana valley, listening while her husband read the
Sears-Roebuck catalogue and sniffed. . . . A retired railway
conductor, very feeble, very religious. . . . A Catholic priest, in a
hospital, chuckling a little. . . . A spinster school-teacher, mad with
loneliness, worshiping Dr. Gantry’s virile voice. . . . Forty people
gathered in a country church too poor to have a pastor. . . . A stock
actor in his dressing-room, fagged with an all-night rehearsal.
All of them listening to the Rev. Dr. Elmer Gantry as he shouted:
“—and I want to tell you that the fellow who is eaten by ambition
is putting the glories of this world before the glories of Heaven! Oh, if
I could only help you to understand that it is humility, that it is simple
loving kindness, that it is tender loyalty, which alone make the heart
glad! Now, if you’ll let me tell a story: It reminds me of two Irishmen
named Mike and Pat—”

V
For years Elmer had had a waking nightmare of seeing Jim
Lefferts sitting before him in the audience, scoffing. It would be a
dramatic encounter and terrible; he wasn’t sure but that Jim would
speak up and by some magic kick him out of the pulpit.
But when, that Sunday morning, he saw Jim in the third row, he
considered only, “Oh, Lord, there’s Jim Lefferts! He’s pretty gray. I
suppose I’ll have to be nice to him.”
Jim came up afterward to shake hands. He did not look cynical;
he looked tired; and when he spoke, in a flat prairie voice, Elmer felt
urban and urbane and superior.
“Hello, Hell-cat,” said Jim.
“Well, well, well! Old Jim Lefferts! Well, by golly! Say, it certainly
is a mighty great pleasure to see you, my boy! What you doing in this
neck of the woods?”
“Looking up a claim for a client.”
“What you doing now, Jim?”
“I’m practising law in Topeka.”
“Doing pretty well?”
 “Oh, I can’t complain. Oh, nothing extra special. I was in the state
senate for a term though.”
“That’s fine! That’s fine! Say, how long gonna be in town?”
“Oh, ’bout three days.”
“Say, want to have you up to the house for dinner; but doggone it,
Cleo—that’s my wife—I’m married now—she’s gone and got me all
sewed up with a lot of dates—you know how these women are—me,
I’d rather sit home and read. But sure got to see you again. Say,
gimme a ring, will you?—at the house (find it in the tel’phone book)
or at my study here in the church.”
“Yuh, sure, you bet. Well, glad to seen you.”
“You bet. Tickled t’ death seen you, old Jim!”
Elmer watched Jim plod away, shoulders depressed, a man
discouraged.
“And that,” he rejoiced, “is the poor fish that tried to keep me from
going into the ministry!” He looked about his auditorium, with the
organ pipes a vast golden pyramid, with the Chubbuck memorial
window vivid in ruby and gold and amethyst. “And become a lawyer
like him, in a dirty stinking little office! Huh! And he actually made fun
of me and tried to hold me back when I got a clear and definite Call
of God! Oh, I’ll be good and busy when he calls up, you can bet on
that!”
Jim did not telephone.
On the third day Elmer had a longing to see him, a longing to
regain his friendship. But he did not know where Jim was staying; he
could not reach him at the principal hotels.
He never saw Jim Lefferts again, and within a week he had
forgotten him, except as it was a relief to have lost his
embarrassment before Jim’s sneering—the last bar between him
and confident greatness.

VI
It was in the summer of 1924 that Elmer was granted a three-
months leave, and for the first time Cleo and he visited Europe.
 He had heard the Rev. Dr. G. Prosper Edwards say, “I divide
American clergymen into just two classes—those who could be
invited to preach in a London church, and those who couldn’t.” Dr.
Edwards was of the first honorable caste, and Elmer had seen him
pick up great glory from having sermonized in the City Temple. The
Zenith papers, even the national religious periodicals, hinted that
when Dr. Edwards was in London, the entire population from king to
navvies had galloped to worship under him, and the conclusion was
that Zenith and New York would be sensible to do likewise.
Elmer thoughtfully saw to it that he should be invited also. He had
Bishop Toomis write to his Wesleyan colleagues, he had Rigg and
William Dollinger Styles write to their Nonconformist business
acquaintances in London, and a month before he sailed he was
bidden to address the celebrated Brompton Road Chapel, so that he
went off in a glow not only of adventure but of message-bearing.

VII
Dr. Elmer Gantry was walking the deck of the Scythia, a bright,
confident, manly figure in a blue suit, a yachting cap, and white
canvas shoes, swinging his arms and beaming pastorally on his
fellow athletic maniacs.
He stopped at the deck chairs of a little old couple—a delicate
blue-veined old lady, and her husband, with thin hands and a thin
white beard.
“Well, you folks seem to be standing the trip pretty good—for old
folks!” he roared.
“Yes, thank you very much,” said the old lady.
He patted her knee, and boomed, “If there’s anything I can do to
make things nice and comfy for you, mother, you just holler! Don’t be
afraid to call on me. I haven’t advertised the fact—kind of fun to
travel what they call incognito—but fact is, I’m a minister of the
gospel, even if I am a husky guy, and it’s my pleasure as well as my
duty to help folks anyway I can. Say, don’t you think it’s just about
the loveliest thing about this ocean traveling, the way folks have the
leisure to get together and exchange ideas? Have you crossed
before?”
“Oh, yes, but I don’t think I ever shall again,” said the old lady.
“That’s right—that’s right! Tell you how I feel about it, mother.”
Elmer patted her hand. “We’re Americans, and while it’s a fine thing
to go abroad maybe once or twice—there’s nothing so broadening
as travel, is there!—still, in America we’ve got a standard of decency
and efficiency that these poor old European countries don’t know
anything about, and in the long run the good old U. S. A. is the place
where you’ll find your greatest happiness—especially for folks like
us, that aren’t any blooming millionaires that can grab off a lot of
castles and those kind of things and have a raft of butlers. You bet!
Well, just holler when I can be of any service to you. So long, folks!
Got to do my three miles!”
When he was gone, the little, delicate old lady said to her
husband:
“Fabian, if that swine ever speaks to me again, I shall jump
overboard! He’s almost the most offensive object I have ever
encountered! Dear—— How many times have we crossed now?”
“Oh, I’ve lost track. It was a hundred and ten two years ago.”
“Not more?”
“Darling, don’t be so snooty.”
“But isn’t there a law that permits one to kill people who call you
‘Mother’?”
“Darling, the Duke calls you that!”
“I know. He does. That’s what I hate about him! Sweet, do you
think fresh air is worth the penalty of being called ‘Mother’? The next
time this animal stops, he’ll call you ‘Father’!”
“Only once, my dear!”

VIII
Elmer considered, “Well, I’ve given those poor old birds some
cheerfulness to go on with. By golly, there’s nothing more important