all right. But what in the world
are you doing?

JOHN BEAL

ARCHIE, it's splendid of you.

ARCHIE BEAL

O, cut it. That's all right. But what's all
this?

JOHN BEAL

O, this. Well, well they're the very oddest
people here. It's a long story. But I wanted
to tell you first how enormously grateful I
am to you for coming.

ARCHIE BEAL

O, that's all right. But I want to know
what you're doing with all these genuine
antiques.

JOHN BEAL

Well, ARCHIE, the fact of it is they're a real
odd lot of people here. I've learnt their
language, more or less, but I don't think I quite
understand them yet. A lot of them are
Mahommedans; they worship Mahommed,
you know. He's dead. But a lot of them
worship these things, and...

ARCHIE BEAL

Well, what have you got 'em all in here
for?

JOHN BEAL

Yes, that's just it. I hate interfering with
them, but, well, I simply had to. You see
there's two sorts of idols here; they offer
fruit and rats to some of them; they lay them
on their hands or their laps.

ARCHIE BEAL

Why do they offer them rats?

JOHN BEAL

O, I don't know. They don't know either.
It's the right thing to do out here, it's been
the right thing for hundreds of years; nobody
exactly knows why. It's like the bows we
have on evening shoes, or anything else.
But it's all right.

ARCHIE BEAL

Well, what are you putting them in heaps
for?

JOHN BEAL

Because there's the other kind, the ones
with wide mouths and rust round them.

ARCHIE BEAL

Rust? Yes, so there is. What do they
do?

JOHN BEAL

They offer blood to them, ARCHIE. They
pour it down their throats. Sometimes they
kill people, sometimes they only bleed them.
It depends how much blood the idol wants.

ARCHIE BEAL

How much blood it wants? Good Lord!
How do they know?

JOHN BEAL

The priests tell them. Sometimes they
fill them up to their necks--they're all hollow,
you know. In spring it's awful.

ARCHIE BEAL

Why are they worse in spring?

JOHN BEAL

I don't know. The priests ask for more
blood then. Much more. They say it always
was so.

ARCHIE BEAL

And you're stopping it?

JOHN BEAL

Yes, I'm stopping these. One must. I'm
letting them worship those. Of course, it's
idolatry and all that kind of thing, but I
don't like interfering short of actual murder.

ARCHIE BEAL

And they're obeying you?

JOHN BEAL

'M, y-yes. I think so.

ARCHIE BEAL

You must have got a great hold over them.