oly. On drizzly evenings of November's worst his haggard face could
be seen in the glow of some shop pressed close against the glass,
where he would supplicate some calm, cross-legged idol till policemen
moved him on. And after closing hours back he would go to his dingy
room, in that part of our capital where English is seldom spoken, to
supplicate little idols of his own. And when Pombo's simple, necessary
prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums, auction-rooms,
shops, then he took counsel with himself and purchased incense and
burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols, and played
the while upon an instrument such as that wherewith men charm snakes.
And still the idols clung to their etiquette.

Whether Pombo knew about this etiquette and considered it frivolous in
the face of his need, or whether his need, now grown desperate,
unhinged his mind, I know not, but Pombo the idolater took a stick and
suddenly turned iconoclast.

Pombo the iconoclast immediately left his house, leaving his idols to
be swept away with the dust and so to mingle with Man, and went to an
arch-idolater of repute who carved idols out of rare stones, and put
his case before him. The arch-idolater who made idols of his own
rebuked Pombo in the name of Man for having broken his idols--"for
hath not Man made them?" the arch-idolater said; and concerning the
idols themselves he spoke long and learnedly, explaining divine
etiquette, and how Pombo had offended, and how no idol in the world
would listen to Pombo's prayer. When Pombo heard this he wept and made
bitter outcry, and cursed the gods of ivory and the gods of jade, and
the hand of Man that made them, but most of all he cursed their
etiquette that had undone, as he said, an innocent man; so that at
last that arch-idolater, who made idols of his own, stopped in his
work upon an idol of jasper for a king that was weary of Wosh, and
took compassion on Pombo, and told him that though no idol in the
world would listen to his prayer, yet only a little way over the edge
of it a certain disreputable idol sat who knew nothing of etiquette,
and granted prayers that no respectable god would ever consent to
hear. When Pombo heard this he took two handfuls of the
arch-idolater's beard and kissed them joyfully, and dried his tears
and became his old impertinent self again. And he that carved from
jasper the usurper of Wosh explained how in the village of World's
End, at the furthe