“Our religion, certainly,” said the Canon decisively. “But the others are not based on reason.”

“Now we’ve got back again to just where we were before the war,” sighed Mr. Brych.

“People are always getting back just where they used to be,” observed Mr. Binder. “That’s what Mr. Kuzenda is always saying. ‘Binder,’ he often says, ‘the truth can never be defeated. You know, Binder,’ he says, ‘that God of ours on the dredge in those days wasn’t so bad, nor was yours on the merry-go-round, and yet, you see, they’ve both of them vanished. Everyone believes in his own superior God, but he doesn’t believe in another man, or credit him with believing in something good. People should first of all believe in other people, and the rest would soon follow.’ That’s what Mr. Kuzenda always says.”

“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Brych. “A man may certainly think that another religion is a bad one, but he oughtn’t to think that the man who follows it is a low, vile, and treacherous fellow. And the same applies to politics and everything.”

“And that’s what so many people have hated and killed each other for,” Father Jost declared. “You know, the greater the things are in which a man believes, the more fiercely he despises those who do not believe in them. And yet the greatest of all beliefs would be belief in one’s fellow-men.”

“Everyone has the best of feelings towards mankind in general, but not towards the individual man. We’ll kill men, but we want to save mankind. And that isn’t right, your Reverence. The world will be an evil place as long as people don’t believe in other people.”

“Mr. Binder,” said Father Jost thoughtfully, “I wonder if you would make me some of that Moravian sauerkraut to-morrow. I’d like to try it.”

“It has to be partly stewed and then steamed, and done like that with a fried sausage it’s very good. Every religion and every truth has something good in it, if it’s only the fact that it suits somebody else.”

The door was opened from outside, and a policeman stepped in. He was chilled to the bone and wanted a glass of rum.

“Ah, it’s you, is it, Sergeant Hruska,” said Brych. “Well now, where have you come from?”

“Oh, we’ve been up in Zizkov,” answered the policeman, pulling off his enormous gloves. “There was a raid on.”

“What did you catch?”

“Oh, a couple of roughs, and a few undesirables. And then at number 1006—in the cellar of the house, I mean—there was a den.”

“What sort of den?” inquired Mr. Rejzek.

“A Karburator den, sir. They had set up a tiny Karburator down there out of an old pre-war motor. A very low crowd has been going down there and holding orgies.”

“What kind of orgies do you mean?”