“The Absolute wants work. It clings furiously to life. Once it created the earth! now it has flung itself into manufacture. It has captured Liberec and the Brno cotton works, Trutnov, twenty sugar factories, sawmills, the City Brewery in Pilsen; it is threatening the Skoda arsenal; it is busy at Jablonec and in the Jachymov mines. In many places people are dismissing their workmen; in others they’ve taken fright, closed the factories, and are just letting the machine go ahead inside. It’s insane over-production. Factories that haven’t got the Absolute are stopping production altogether. It’s ruin.

“And I,” said Mr. Bondy to himself, “am a patriot. I will not let our country be brought to ruin. Besides, there are our own establishments here. Very well, from to-day onward we will cancel all orders from Czechoslovakia. What has been done is done; but from this moment not a single Karburator shall be set up in the land of the Czechs. We’ll flood the Germans and the French with them; then we’ll bombard England with the Absolute. England is conservative, and won’t have anything to do with our Karburators. Well, we’ll drop them on her from airships like big bombs. We’ll infect the whole industrial and financial world with God, and preserve only our own country as an island of civilization and honest labour free from God. It is a patriotic duty, so to speak, and besides, we have our own factories to consider.”

The prospect gladdened G. H. Bondy’s heart.

“At any rate we’ll gain time to invent some sort of protective mask against the Absolute. Damn it, I’ll set aside three millions myself for purposes of research into protective measures against God. Better say two millions to start with. All the Czechs will go about wearing their masks, while all the rest—ha! ha!—will be getting drowned in the Absolute. At any rate their industries will go under.”

Mr. Bondy began to look upon the world less darkly. “There’s a young woman going by. Nice springy walk. I wonder what she looks like from the front.” Mr. Bondy quickened his step, passed her, suddenly stepped respectfully to one side, then seemed to change his mind again, and turned on his heel so abruptly that he almost ran right into her.

“You, Ellen,” he said hastily. “I had no idea, that—that—”

“I knew that you were following me,” said the girl standing still with downcast eyes.

“You knew it?” said Bondy, greatly pleased. “I was just thinking about you.”

“I could feel your bestial desires,” said Ellen quietly.

“My what?”

“Your bestial desires. You did not recognize me. You only appraised me with your eyes as if I were for sale.”

G. H. Bondy frowned. “Ellen, why do you wish to hurt my feelings?”