Chapter X
Saint Ellen
A few days after these occurrences G. H. Bondy was wandering through the streets of Prague, a cigar between his teeth, thinking things over. Anyone who met him would have thought that he was looking at the pavement; but Mr. Bondy was really looking into the future. "Marek was right," he was saying to himself, "Bishop Linda even more so. It was simply impossible to bring God to earth without a confounded lot coming of it. People could do what they liked, but it was going to shake the banks and do goodness knows what with industry. A religious strike broke out at the Industrial Bank to-day. We installed a Karburator there, and within two days the officials declared the bank's property to be a sacred trust for the poor. That couldn't have happened when Preis was manager. No, it certainly would never have happened."
Bondy sucked at his cigar in great depression. "Well, what about it?" he said to himself. "Are we to throw the whole thing up? Orders worth twenty-three millions came in to-day. It can't be stopped now. It means the end of the world, or something.
79
