I found a letter which
was one of the steepest pieces of invective I had ever met with. The
writer gave tongue like a beagle pup about the prostitution, as he
called it, of American republicanism to the vices of European
aristocracies. He declared that Senator La Follette was a
much-misunderstood patriot, seeing that he alone spoke for the toiling
millions who had no other friend. He was mad with President Wilson, and
he prophesied a great awakening when Uncle Sam got up against John Bull
in Europe and found out the kind of standpatter he was. The letter was
signed 'John S. Blenkiron' and dated 'London, 3 July'.

The thought that Blenkiron was in England put a new complexion on my
business. I reckoned I would see him soon, for he wasn't the man to
stand still in his tracks. He had taken up the role he had played
before he left in December 1915, and very right too, for not more than
half a dozen people knew of the Erzerum affair, and to the British
public he was only the man who had been fired out of the Savoy for
talking treason. I had felt a bit lonely before, but now somewhere
within the four corners of the island the best companion God ever made
was writing nonsense with his tongue in his old cheek.

There was an institution in Biggleswick which deserves mention. On the
south of the common, near the station, stood a red-brick building
called the Moot Hall, which was a kind of church for the very undevout
population. Undevout in the ordinary sense, I mean, for I had already
counted twenty-seven varieties of religious conviction, including three
Buddhists, a Celestial Hierarch, five Latter-day Saints, and about ten
varieties of Mystic whose names I could never remember. The hall had
been the gift of the publisher I have spoken of, and twice a week it
was used for lectures and debates. The place was managed by a committee
and was surprisingly popular, for it gave all the bubbling intellects a
chance of airing their views. When you asked where somebody was and
were told he was 'at Moot,' the answer was spoken in the respectful
tone in which you would mention a sacrament.

I went there regularly and got my mind broadened to cracking point. We
had all the stars of the New Movements. We had Doctor Chirk, who
lectured on 'God', which, as far as I could make out, was a new name he
had invented for himself. There was a woman, a terrible woman, who had
come back from Russia with what she called a 'message of healing'. And
to