of the Church. We can do this if we will. We possess great wealth and we exert
secret influences; by our evangelistic and outspoken journals we communicate

with all the ecclesiastics in towns and county alike, and we inspire them with
our own eager enthusiasm and our own burning faith. They will kindle their

penitents and their congregations. I can dispose of the chiefs of the army; I
have an understanding with the men of the people. Unknown to them I sway the

minds of umbrella sellers, publicans, shopmen, gutter merchants, newspaper
boys, women of the streets, and police agents. We have more people on our side

than we need. What are we waiting for? Let us act!"
"What do you think of doing?" asked Cornemuse.

"Of forming a vast conspiracy and overthrowing the Republic, of
re-establishing Crucho on the throne of the Draconides."

Cornemuse moistened his lips with his tongue several times. Then he said with
unction:

"Certainly the restoration of the Draconides is desirable; it is eminently
desirable; and for my part, desire it with all my heart. As for the Republic,

you know what I think of it. . . . But would it not te better to abandon it to
its fate and let it die of the vices of its own constitution? Doubtless,

Agaric, what you propose is noble and generous. It would be a fine thing to
save this great and unhappy country, to re-establish it in its ancient

splendour. But reflect on it, we are Christians before we are Penguins. And we
must take heed not to compromise religion in political enterprises."

Agaric replied eagerly:
"Fear nothing. We shall hold all the threads of the plot, but we ourselves

shall remain in the background. We shall not be seen."
"Like flies in milk," murmured the monk of Conils.

And turning his keen ruby-coloured eyes towards his brother monk:
"Take care. Perhaps the Republic is stronger than it seems. Possibly, too, by

dragging it out of the nervelessinertia in which it now rests we may only
consolidate its forces. Its malice is great; if we attack it, it will defend

itself. It makes bad laws which hardly affect us; if it is frightened it will
make terrible ones against us. Let us not lightly engage in an adventure in

which we may get fleeced. You think the opportunity a good one. I don't, and I
am going to tell you why. The present government is not yet known by

everybody, that is to say, it is known by nobody. It proclaims that it is the
Public Thing, the common thing. The populace believes it and remains

democratic and Republican. But patience! This same people will one day demand
that the public thing be the people's thing. I need not tell you how insolent,

unregulated, and contrary to Scriptural polity such claims seem to me. But the
people will make them, and enforce them, and then there will be an end of the

present government. The moment cannot now be far distant; and it is then that
we ought to act in the interests of our august body. Let us wait. What hurries

us? Our existence is not in peril. It has not been rendered absolutely
intolerable to us. The Republic fails in respect and submission to us; it does

not give the priests the honours it owes them. But it lets us live. And such
is the excellence of our position that with us to live is to prosper. The

Republic is hostile to us, but women revere us. President Formose does not
assist at the celebration of our mysteries, but I have seen his wife and

daughters at my feet. They buy my phials by the gross. I have no better
clients even among the aristocracy. Let us say what there is to be said for

it. There is no country in the world as good for priests and monks as
Penguinia. In what other country would you find our virgin wax, our virile

incense, our rosaries, our scapulars, our holy water, and our St. Orberosian
liqueur sold in such great quantities? What other people would, like the

Penguins, give a hundred golden crowns for a wave of our hands, a sound from
our mouths, a movement of our lips? For my part, I gain a thousand times more,

in this pleasant, faithful, and docile Penguinia, by extracting the essence
from a bundle of thyme, than I could make by tiring my lungs with preaching

the remission of sins in the most populous states of Europe and America.
Honestly, would Penguinia be better off if a police officer came to take me

away from here and put me on a steamboat bound for the Islands of Night?"
Having thus spoken, the monk of Conils got up and led his guest into a huge

shed where hundreds of orphans clothed in blue were packing bottles, nailing
up cases, and gumming tickets. The ear was deafened by the noise of hammers

mingled with the dull rumbling of bales being placed upon the rails.
"It is from here that consignments are forwarded," said Cornemuse. "I have

obtained from the government a railway through the Wood and a station at my
door. Every three days I fill a truck with my own products. You see that the

Republic has not killed all beliefs."
Agaric made a last effort to engage the wise distiller in his enterprise. He

pointed him to a prompt, certain, dazzling success.
"Don't you wish to share in it?" he added. "Don't you wish to bring back your

king from exile?"
"Exile is pleasant to men of good will," answered the monk of Conils. "If you

are guided by me, my dear Brother Agaric, you will give up your project for
the present. For my own part I have no illusions. Whether or not I belong to

your party, if you lose, I shall have to pay like you."
Father Agaric took leave of his friend and went back satisfied to his school.

"Cornemuse," thought he, "not being able to prevent the plot, would like to
make it succeed and he will give money." Agaric was not deceived. Such,

indeed, was the solidarity among priests and monks that the acts of a single
one bound them all. That was at once both their strength and their weakness.

V. PRINCE CRUCHO
Agaric resolved to proceed without delay to Prince Crucho, who honoured him

with his familiarity. In the dusk of the evening he went out of his school by
the side door, disguised as a cattle merchant and took passage on board the

St. Mael.
The next day he landed in Porpoisea, for it was at Chitterlings Castle on this

hospitable soil that Crucho ate the bitter bread of exile.
Agaric met the Prince on the road driving in a motor-car with two young ladies

at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. When the monk saw him he shook his red
umbrella and the prince stopped his car.

"Is it you, Agaric? Get in! There are already three of us, but we can make
room for you. You can take one of these young ladies on your knee."

The pious Agaric got in.
"What news, worthy father?" asked the young prince.

"Great news," answered Agaric. "Can I speak?"
"You can. I have nothing secret from these two ladies."

"Sire, Penguinia claims you. You will not be deaf to her call."
Agaric described the state of feeling and outlined a vast plot.

"On my first signal," said he, "all your partisans will rise at once. With
cross in hand and habits girded up, your venerableclergy will lead the armed

crowd into Formose's palace. We shall carry terror and death among your
enemies. For a reward of our efforts we only ask of you, Sire, that you will

not render them useless. We entreat you to come and seat yourself on the
throne that we shall prepare."

The prince returned a simple answer:
"I shall enter Alca on a green horse."

Agaric declared that he accepted this manly response. Although, contrary to
his custom, he had a lady on his knee, he adjured the young prince, with a

sublime loftiness of soul, to be faithful to his royal duties.
"Sire," he cried, with tears in his eyes, "you will live to remember the day

on which you have been restored from exile, given back to your people,
reestablished on the throne of your ancestors by the hands of your monks, and

crowned by them with the august crest of the Dragon. King Crucho, may you
equal the glory of your ancestor Draco the Great!"

The young prince threw himself with emotion on his restorer and attempted to
embrace him, but he was prevented from reaching him by the girth of the two

ladies, so tightly packed were they all in that historic carriage.
"Worthy father," said he, "I would like all Penguinia to witness this

embrace."
"It would be a cheering spectacle," said Agaric.

In the mean time the motor-car rushed like a tornado through hamlets and
villages, crushing hens, geese, turkeys, ducks, guinea-fowls, cats, dogs,

pigs, children, labourers, and women beneath its insatiable tyres. And the
pious Agaric turned over his great designs in his mind. His voice, coming from

behind one of the ladies, expressed this thought:
"We must have money, a great deal of money."

"That is your business," answered the prince.
But already the park gates were opening to the formidable motor-car.

The dinner was sumptuous. They toasted the Dragon's crest. Everybody knows
that a closed goblet is a sign of sovereignty; so Prince Crucho and Princess

Gudrune, his wife, drank out of goblets that were covered-over like ciboriums.
The prince had his filled several times with the wines of Penguinia, both

white and red.
Crucho had received a truly princely education, and he excelled in motoring,

but was not ignorant of history either. He was said to be well versed in the