ation on the First Floor and turn to the Right." "Put your Money on
your Maker." "The Sharpest Conversion in London, Expert Operators! Look
Slippy!" "What Christ would say to the Sleeper;--Join the Up-to-date
Saints!" "Be a Christian--without hindrance to your present Occupation."
"All the Brightest Bishops on the Bench to-night and Prices as Usual."
"Brisk Blessings for Busy Business Men."

"But this is appalling!" said Graham, as that deafening scream of
mercantile piety towered above them.

"What is appalling?" asked his little officer, apparently seeking vainly
for anything unusual in this shrieking enamel.

"_This!_ Surely the essence of religion is reverence."

"Oh _that!_" Asano looked at Graham. "Does it shock you?" he said in the
tone of one who makes a discovery. "I suppose it would, of course. I had
forgotten. Nowadays the competition for attention is so keen, and people
simply haven't the leisure to attend to their souls, you know, as they
used to do." He smiled. "In the old days you had quiet Sabbaths and the
countryside. Though somewhere I've read of Sunday afternoons that--"

"But, _that_," said Graham, glancing back at the receding blue and
white. "That is surely not the only--"

"There are hundreds of different ways. But, of course, if a sect doesn't
tell it doesn't pay. Worship has moved with the times. There are high
class sects with quieter ways--costly incense and personal attentions
and all that. These people are extremely popular and prosperous. They
pay several dozen lions for those apartments to the Council--to you, I
should say."

Graham still felt a difficulty with the coinage, and this mention of
a dozen lions brought him abruptly to that matter. In a moment the
screaming temples and their swarming touts were forgotten in this new
interest. A turn of a phrase suggested, and an answer confirmed the idea
that gold and silver were both demonetised, that stamped gold which had
begun its reign amidst the merchants of Phoenicia was at last dethroned.
The change had been graduated but swift, brought about by an extension
of the system of cheques that had even in his previous life already
practically superseded gold in all the larger business transactions. The
common traffic of the city, the common currency indeed of all the world,
was conducted by means of the little brown, green and pink council
cheques for small amounts, printed with a blank payee. Asano had several
with him, and at the fir