“The fire’s still raging,” repeated Bondy, as though in a dream. “The fire’s still raging. My God, then, we have won!”

“The Chairman of the Mining and Smelting Company has shot himself. The Stock Exchange has simply gone mad. We stand at 8,000 to-day in Berlin. The Cabinet is in permanent sitting, and want to proclaim a state of siege. This isn’t an invention, Chief, it’s a revolution!”

The Chairman and the General Manager of the M.E.C. looked at each other in silence. Neither of them was a poet, but in that moment their very souls were singing.

The manager drew his chair closer and said in a low voice, “Chief, Rosenthal has gone crazy.”

“Rosenthal!” exclaimed G. H. Bondy.

The manager nodded mournfully. “He has become an orthodox Jew, and he’s gone in for Talmudic mysticism and Cabalism. He has given ten millions to the cause of Zionism. Not long ago he had a terrible quarrel with Dr. Hubka. You’ve surely heard that Hubka has joined the Bohemian Brethren.”

“What, has Hubka got it too?”

“Yes, I think the Board of Directors must have caught it from Machat. You were not present at the last meeting, Chief. It was terrible; they talked religion until morning. Hubka moved that we hand over our establishments to the workers. Luckily, they forgot to take a vote on it. They were like men possessed.”

Bondy gnawed at his fingers. “What on earth am I to do with them?”

“Hm, nothing whatever. It’s a nervous disease of the age. Something of the sort crops up now and again in the papers, too, but they’re so full of the Karburators that they haven’t space for anything else. There’s an appalling number of cases of religious mania. It’s a physicial epidemic or something. The other day I saw Dr. Hubka preaching to a crowd of people in front of the Industrial Bank about seeking the inward light and making straight the path for God. Fearfully incoherent stuff. He wound up by performing miracles. Forst is at it too. Rosenthal is nothing short of insane. Miller, Homola and Kolator came out with a proposal for voluntary poverty. We can’t possibly have another board-meeting. It’s a regular madhouse, Chief. You’ll have to take the whole idiotic business in hand.”

“But, man, this is simply awful,” groaned G. H. Bondy.

“It is indeed. Did you hear about the Sugar Bank? All the officials there were seized with it at one fell swoop. They opened the safes and gave away the money to anyone who came. They finished by burning bundles of banknotes on a bonfire in the main hall. Religious Bolshevism, I should call it.”

“In the Sugar Bank? . . . Hasn’t the Sugar Bank one of our Karburators?”