Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/179

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St. Kilda
167

please. For my own part, I use a double hook for salmon. The other day I caught one as long as that, look! Fourteen pounds."

"And what about the Papal Nuncio?" asked Dr. Wurm quietly.

"The Holy See requests us to maintain order at all costs. It wants us to have mysticism prohibited by the police. That wouldn't do in England, and altogether. . . . Well, I assure you it weighed quite fourteen pounds. Heavens, I had all I could do to keep from falling into the water!"

Baron Yanato smiled still more politely. "But we do not wish for neutrality. He is a great Japanese. The whole world can adopt the Japanese faith. We, too, would like to send out missionaries for once, and teach religion."

"Baron," said Sir W. O'Patterney gravely, "you know that the excellent relations existing between our Governments . . ."

"England can adopt the Japanese faith," smiled Baron Yanato, "and our relations will be even better."

"Stop, batushko," cried General Buchtin. "We'll have no Japanese faith. If there's to be any faith, then it must be the Orthodox faith. And do you know why? First, because it is orthodox, and secondly, because it is Russian, and thirdly, because our Czar so wills it, and fourthly, because we, my