,
with an ineffable sadness at his stoves and his retorts.

VI. THE SEVEN HUNDRED PYROTISTS

The seven hundred Pyrotists inspired the public with an increasing
aversion. Every day two or three of them were beaten to death in the
streets. One of them was publicly whipped, another thrown into the
river, a third tarred and feathered and led through a laughing crowd, a
fourth had his nose cut off by a captain of dragoons. They did not dare
to show themselves at their clubs, at tennis, or at the races; they
put on a disguise when they went to the Stock Exchange. In these
circumstances the Prince des Boscenos thought it urgent to curb their
audacity and repress their insolence. For this purpose he joined with
Count Clena, M. de La Trumelle, Viscount Olive, and M. Bigourd in
founding a great anti-Pyrotist association to which citizens in hundreds
of thousands, soldiers in companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and
army corps, towns, districts, and provinces, all gave their adhesion.

About this time the Minister of War happening to visit one day his Chief
of Staff, saw with surprise that the large room where General Panther
worked, which was formerly quite bare, had now along each wall from
floor to ceiling in sets of deep pigeon-holes, triple and quadruple rows
of paper bundles of every as form and colour. These sudden and monstrous
records had in a few days reached the dimensions of a pile of archives
such as it takes centuries to accumulate.

"What is this?" asked the astonished minister.

"Proofs against Pyrot," answered General Panther with patriotic
satisfaction. "We had not got them when we convicted him, but we have
plenty of them now."

The door was open, and Greatauk saw coming up the stair-case a long file
of porters who were unloading heavy bales of papers in the hall, and he
saw the lift slowly rising heavily loaded with paper packets.

"What are those others?" said he.

"They are fresh proofs against Pyrot that are now reaching us," said
Panther. "I have asked for them in every county of Penguinia, in every
Staff Office and in every Court in Europe. I have ordered them in every
town in America and in Australia, and in every factory in Africa, and I
am expecting bales of them from Bremen and a ship-load from Melbourne."
And Panther turned towards the Minister of War the tranquil and radiant
look of a hero. However, Greatauk, his eye-glass in his eye, was looking
at the formidable pile of papers