The False Gods | Page 2

pick and spade the buried
mysteries along the Nile. And this rivalry, which was strong between
the societies and bitter between their presidents, became acute in the

persons of their secretaries, both of whom were women. Madame
Gianclis, who served the Boston Society, boasted Egyptian blood in her
veins, a claim which Mrs. Athelstone, who acted as secretary for her
husband's society, politely conceded, with the qualification that some
ancestor of her rival had contributed a dash of the Senegambian as well.
[Illustration: "'Aw, fergit it.'"]
This remark, duly reported to Madame Gianclis, had not put her in a
humor to concede Madame Blavatsky's soul, or any part of it, to Mrs.
Athelstone. Promptly on hearing of her pretensions, so rumor had it, the
Boston woman had announced the reincarnation of Theosophy's high
priestess in herself. And Boston believers were inclined to accept her
view, as it was difficult for them to understand how any soul with
liberty of action could deliberately choose a New York residence.
Now, all these things had filtered through to Naylor from those just
without the temple gates, for whatever the quarrels of the two societies
and their enemies, they tried to keep them to themselves. They had had
experience with publicity and had found that ridicule goes hand in hand
with it in this iconoclastic age. But out of these rumors, unconfirmed
though they were, grew a vision in Naylor's brain--a vision of a
glorified spread in the _Sunday Banner's_ magazine section. Under a
two-page "head," builded cunningly of six sizes of type, he saw
ravishingly beautiful pictures of Madame Gianclis and Mrs. Athelstone,
and hovering between them the materialized, but homeless, soul of
Madame Blavatsky, trying to make choice of an abiding-place, the
whole enlivened and illuminated with much "snappy" reading matter.
Now, Simpkins was the man to make a managing editor's dreams come
true, so Naylor rubbed the lamp for him and told him what he craved.
But the reporter's success in life had been won by an ability to combine
much extravagance of statement in the written with great conservatism
in the spoken word. Early in his experience he had learned that Naylor's
optimism, though purely professional, entailed unpleasant
consequences on the reporter who shared it and then betrayed some too
generous trust; so he absolutely refused to admit that there was any
basis for it now.

"You know she won't talk to reporters," he protested. "Those New York
boys have joshed that whole bunch so they're afraid to say their prayers
out loud. Then she's English and dead swell, and that combination's
hard to open, unless you have a number in the Four Hundred, and then
it ain't refined to try. I can make a pass at her, but it'll be a frost for
me."
"Nonsense! You must make her talk, or manage to be around while
some one else does," Naylor answered, waving aside obstacles with the
noble scorn of one whose business it is to set others to conquer them. "I
want a good snappy interview, understand, and descriptions for some
red-hot pictures, if you can't get photos. I'm going to save the spread in
the Sunday magazine for that story, and you don't want to slip up on the
Athelstone end of it. That hall is just what the story needs for a setting.
Get in and size it up."
"You remember what happened to that Courier man who got in?"
ventured Simpkins.
"I believe I did hear something about a Courier man's being snaked out
of a closet and kicked downstairs. Served him right. Very coarse work.
Very coarse work indeed. There's a better way and you'll find it." There
was something unpleasantly significant in his voice, as he terminated
the interview by swinging around to his desk and picking up a handful
of papers, which warned the reporter that he had gone the limit.
Simpkins had heard of the hall, for it had been written up just after
Doctor Athelstone, who was a man of some wealth, had assembled in it
his private collection of Egyptian treasures. But he knew, too, that it
had become increasingly difficult to penetrate since Mrs. Athelstone
had been made the subject of some entertaining, but too imaginative,
Sunday specials. Still, now that he had properly magnified the
difficulties of the undertaking to Naylor, that the disgrace of defeat
might be discounted or the glory of achievement enhanced, he believed
that he knew a way to gain access to the hall and perhaps to manage a
talk with Mrs. Athelstone herself. His line of thought started him for
Cambridge, where he had a younger brother whom he was helping
through Harvard.

As a result of this fraternal visit, Simpkins minor cut the classes of
Professor Alexander Blackburn, the eminent archæologist, for the next