The Purple Pterodactyls

A Sending Of Serpents

I was not thinking of snakes. I was thinking of the loan that we—that is, the Harrison Trust—had made to the shaky Gliozzi Construction Company, when Malcolm McGill, our treasurer, came in.

"Willy," he said, "you know old Mrs. Dalton?"

"Sure. What about her?"

"She wants to close out her account and give everything away."

"I suppose that's her privilege. But why?"

"I think you'd better talk to her."

"Oh, lord! She'll talk my ear off," I said. "But I suppose I'd better."

McGill brought Mrs. Dalton into my office. She was one of a number of rich oldsters who had custodian accounts with us. We kept them in sound high-yield stocks and tax-free municipals, clipped their coupons, looked over their accounts a couple of times a year to see if some trading was indicated, and sent the owners their monthly checks.

I pulled out a chair for her. "Well, Mrs. Dalton," I said, "I hear you're leaving us."

She smiled sweetly. "Oh, not really leaving you, Mr. Newbury. Not in spirit, that is. But I've found a better use for that material stuff you call money than just sitting there in the bank."

"Yes?" I said, hoisting an eyebrow. "Tell me, please. We try to protect your interests."

"The money will be given to the Master to carry forward his great work."

"The Master?"

"You know. Surely you've heard of the wonderful work Mr. Bergius is doing?"

"Oh. I've heard something, but tell me more about it."

"The Master's organization is called Hagnophilia, meaning 'love of purity.' You see, he's the earthly representative of the Interstellar Ruling Council. They chose him for his purity and vision and took him up in a flying saucer to the planet Zikkarf, where the Council meets. After they'd tested him, they decided he was worthy of becoming an associate member. By helping his great work, we can assure his promotion to full membership. That means that the earth will have a voice in interstellar affairs."

"Indeed. And what do you get out of this, Mrs. Dalton?"

"Oh, his teachings will enable us to retain our full health and vigor until the time comes for us to pass. When that time comes, we'll pass directly into our next bodies without this messy business of dying. And, he says, we'll retain the full memory of our previous life, so we can take advantage of the lessons we've learned. The way things are nowadays, we forget our previous existences, so the lessons we learned in them have to be learned all over again."

"Very interesting. How has Mr. Bergius' scheme worked?"

"It hasn't been in operation long enough to tell, really. But when old Mr. White passed, it was with such a peaceful smile on his face, that showed that he had gone directly to his next incarnation, just as the Master promised."

"Well, Mrs. Dalton, your Master has made some pretty big claims. Hadn't you better wait a while, to see how they pan out? He wouldn't be the first to arouse large expectations and fail to fulfill them."

Her mouth became firm. "No, Mr. Newbury, I have decided what I want to do, and that I shall do. Will you please make out the papers?"

Later, Mrs. Dalton went out of the bank with a large cardboard envelope, containing all her securities and a check for the cash balance, under her arm. Her chauffeur helped her into her car, and off they went. McGill, glumly watching, asked me:

"What's this all about, Willy?"

I told him. He said: "Hagnophilia sounds like a blood disease. What does it mean: 'love of hags'?"

"No; 'love of purity.' Greek."

During the next month, two more of our custodian accounts were terminated likewise. My boss Esau Drexel called me into his presidential office to ask me about it.

"It would take more than the loss of a few custodian accounts to rock us, even though we're a small bank," he said, "but it sets a bad precedent. When these people are broke, we'll be blamed for letting them blow their wads on this mountebank."

"True," I said, "but the world is full of suckers. Always has been. Short of starting a rival cult, I don't see what we can do."

"Might start one to Plutus, the god of wealth," said Drexel. "Damn it, the only way to get anything done nowadays is to start some goddam cult. Did I tell you, my grandson had dropped out of college to join one?"

"No. What's this? I'm sorry."

"Some guy named the Reverend Sung—Chinese or something—has what he calls Scientific Sorcery, and he filled poor George's head with his nonsense. He's convinced the kid that his family are all possessed by evil spirits, so George won't have anything to do with us. If half of what George says is true, they can do things to curl your hair."

"Can't you get the law on this Reverend Sung?"

"No. We tried, but he's protected by the First Amendment. My lawyer says, if we tried force on George, we'd end up in jail for kidnapping."

Then old John Sturdevant decided to close out his account and give the funds to the Master. His account, however, was an irrevocable trust, which we could not have released even if we had wished.

Sturdevant was a nasty old man. Of few can it be truthfully said that they snarl their words, but Sturdevant snarled his.

"Young man," he said (I was just past fifty), "I've lived long enough to know a good thing when I see it. You're standing in the way of progress and enlightenment, damn it. You're condemning me to a lingering, painful death from something or other. I've got sixteen things the matter with me now, and with the Master's help I could grow a new set of teeth, get my prostate back to normal size, and everything. Then I could pass, zip, into my next body without a hitch. Besides, with this money the Master could end war, control the population explosion, and distribute the world's wealth equitably. You're a butcher, a sadist, a Hitler. Good-day, sir!"

He stamped out, banging his walking stick with each step.

The next dust-up occurred when Bascom Goetz wanted to withdraw all the money from the trust fund of his twelve-year-old nephew and ward, to enroll the boy in one of Bergius's educational institutes. These far-out schools promised to turn their pupils into superbeings who could do everything short of walking on water. The trust allowed the spending of principal for the boy's education and necessities, but we did not consider the Master's schools as coming under either head. Since Goetz had to have our consent for this withdrawal, we had a thundering row with Goetz. He stamped off to consult his lawyer.

My next contact with Hagnophilia occurred when our freshman son Stephen brought home a friend for a week end. The friend, Chet Carpenter, wore blue jeans and had hair hanging halfway down his back—a male coiffure that has always made me wince.

During dinner, Carpenter said he planned to drop out of college and devote his life to Hagnophilia. With a little prodding, he launched into a harangue about the sect:

"You see, Mr. Newbury, it's all a matter of bringing your purusha up to full acromatics. Your purusha is the immaterial nexus of energy-processing between the seven planes of existence. It manifests for billions of years, until its psychionic charge is exhausted. The Interstellar Council is working on a project for recharging exhausted purushas, so we won't just terminate after a mere trillion years or so.

"Well, you see, as one envelope unwinds, the purusha hovers in interspace until another issues for it to inform. But that time of hovering is out of the seven-dimensional time stream, so the memory of previous informings is laniated.

"You see, as the human population has ramped, there's gotten to be more envelopes than purushas to inform them. So the purushas of lower organisms—apes, tigers, even centipedes—have filled the vacancies. That's why so many humans act so beastly. Their purushas haven't fruited in accordance with the akashic plan but have shunted the intermediate rungs. So, you see, they're not yet qualified for human somatism.

"The Hindus and the Druids had some inkling of this, you see, but the Interstellar Council has decided it's time to put religion on a scientific basis. So they've sent the Master back to Zamarath—that's what you folks call the earth—with the true doctrine. You see, up to now the human soma, with all its limitations, has been the most etheric envelope that a purusha could inform. But with our science, we are ready for the next rung, when we can mold our envelopes as easily as you can model clay. Do you follow me?"

"I'm afraid not," I said. "To be frank, it sounds to me like gibberish."

"That's because I've given you some of the advanced doctrine without the elementary introduction. After all, a textbook on nuclear physics would sound like gibberish, too, it you didn't know any physics. I could arrange for you to take our elementary course—"

"I'm afraid I have my hands more than full. I'm supposed to lecture the Bankers' Association on the fallacy of the Keynesian theories, and I have to read up for it. But tell me: how does your cult—"

"Please, Mr. Newbury! We don't like the word 'cult.' It's a religio-scientific association and qualifies as a church for purposes of taxation. You were saying?"

"I mean to ask how your—ah—religio-scientific association gets along with the other—with the cults, such as that of the Reverend Sung."

Carpenter bounced in his chair with excitement. "He's terrible! Most of the cults, as you call them, are deluded but harmless. A few even have glimpses of the truth. But the Sungites are an evil, dangerous gang, conspiring against the human world.

"You see, there are a lot of abnormal purushas drifting around, which have been so distorted by the stresses of the last ten billion years that they won't fit into any envelope. So they watch for chances to inform a human soma when its own purusha isn't watching and run off with it."

"Like stealing somebody's car?" Privately, I thought that anybody so hated by the Hagnosophists could not be all bad.

"Exactly. You see, these homeless purushas are what they used to call 'demons' or 'devils.' Sung claims he can control them, but actually they control him and all his suckers. They hope sooner or later to take over Zamarath this way. The Master is going to expose this plot the next time he is translated to Zikkarf. Meanwhile, we have to watch the Sungites and try to stop their evil plans."

"Zikkarf," I repeated. "How do you spell it?"

Carpenter spelled the word. I said: "I thought that rang a bell the first time I heard it. Now I know. There was a pulp writer back in the thirties, who wrote about life on an imaginary planet of that name. He spelled it differently."

"He must have had an inkling of the truth," said Carpenter.

"What does your Master propose to do with all those poor lost souls?"

Carpenter told me of the cult's program for capturing these errant spooks and, by some sort of ghostly psychoanalysis, beating them back into normal shape. At least, that was how I understood it, albeit his explanation was couched in such cultic gobbledygook that it was hard to be sure. I said:

"Do you ever have services—I mean, general meetings, open to the public?"

"Oh, yes. We're not a secret organization in any way." Carpenter's eyes glowed with zeal. "Matter of fact, we're having one near here in a couple of weeks. The Master himself will be here. Would you like to come?"

"Yes," I said. If I was going to do anything about the racket that was siphoning off the funds of my gullible old depositors, I ought to see what the enemy looked like.

The meeting, in an auditorium a few miles from my home, was a fine piece of dramaturgy. There were candles and incense. I was made uneasy by the sight of the Master's henchmen—burly fellows in white uniforms, with their pants tucked into shiny black boots. Some assisted in seating people, while others stood at attention with grim, don't-start-anything expressions. Several at the entrances collected "free-will offerings" in baskets.

There were songs and announcements and the reading of some creed or manifesto. Then, with a flourish of trumpets, the Master appeared, white-robed, with spotlights on him.

Ludwig Bergius was a tall, spare, blond, blue-eyed man, who wore his hair down to his shoulders. The hair was so brassy that I suspected either dye or a wig. He startlingly resembled those self-portraits that Albrecht Dürer painted as pictures of Jesus Christ, which have been followed by Western religious art ever since. Bergius had a splendid voice, deep and resonant, which could easily have filled the auditorium without the public-address system.

Bergius spoke for an hour, making vast if nebulous promises and denouncing countless enemies. He especially berated the Reverent Sung's cult by name as a Mafia of demons in human guise. His voice had a hypnotic quality, which lulled one into a kind of passive daze. One ended with the impression that one had had a wonderful revelation but without remembering much of what the Master had actually said. Some of his assertions seemed to contradict what others had told me of his doctrines; but I understood that he brought out a new doctrine every month or two, keeping his suckers too confused to think.

When Bergius had finished, his white-clad storm-troopers bustled into the aisles with long-handled collection baskets to take up another offering. There were more songs, announcements, and the other routines of religious services, and the show was over. On the way out, the storm troopers were active at the exits, collecting more offerings. They were politely aggressive about it. I paid up, not being prepared to fight a whole gang of husky thugs half my age.

One of our depositors is the Temple Beth-El. The next time Rabbi Harris was in, I spoke of the Hagnophilists. With a sigh, he said:

"Yes, we've lost several members of our congregation to these ganifs. Naturally, we're stronger for religious freedom than anybody, but still—Mr. Newbury, you gave a talk last year on financial rackets, didn't you?"

"Yes, at the YMCA."

"Well, why don't you give one, with accent on these cults, at the YMHA? Turn about's fair play."

"Okay," I said.

That was how I came to give my celebrated expose at the YMHA. I presented grim examples of elderly suckers who had blown their all on Hagnophilia, been reduced to nervous wrecks by their 'treatments,' and then had been cast into outer darkness. I ended:

"... of course, any of you is free to take up any of these forms of the higher nonsense—Homosophy, Hagnophilia, Cosmonetics, and the rest—that you like. It's still a free country. Personally, I'd rather pick up a rattlesnake with my bare hand and trust it not to bite me. Thank you."

I had to go out of town for a few days on business. When I got back, I found a new piece of furniture in the living room. It was a small terrarium, with pebbles, moss, and a little pool. Coiled up at one end lay a garter snake.

"Denise!" I said. "What's this?"

"A boy came around with the serpent," she explained. "He said you had advertised for snakes, at a dollar a snake. Why did you do that, mon cher?"

"Huh? I never did. Somebody's made a mistake. What then?" I reached into the terrarium and ran a finger along the scales of the snake, who wriggled away in alarm. It had not yet gotten used to captivity. "I do like them, though."

"Priscille has always wanted a pet, ever since our old dog died. So she got this glass case from one of her friends and fixed it up."

"What do you feed it?"

"Priscille buys little goldfishes and puts them in the pond. When Damballah gets hungry, he grabs them and swallows them."

"Hm. How much do these fish cost?"

"Forty cents each, at the pet shop."

"That won't do, especially when we've got a perfectly good garden full of worms."

That night, our younger daughter and I were out hunting earthworms with a flashlight. The trick, I told her, was to grab them when they had extended their front halves out of their burrows to browse on the surface. Then you shouldn't pull on them, or they would break in half. Instead, wait for them to relax and stop trying to pull back into their holes, and they would come out easily.

Priscille was not pleased with the idea of grabbing a slimy worm with her bare hands. Instead, she used paper handkerchiefs. We had caught several when a youth appeared in our driveway with a carton in his arms.

"Mr. Newbury?" he said. "I got a snake here, like you advertised for."

"Who says I advertised for a snake?" I demanded.

"Why, uh, that sign. The sign in the railroad station."

I learned that a notice had appeared on the bulletin board of the suburban station, reading: SNAKES WANTED FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES. WILL PAY ONE DOLLAR FOR EACH, ANY SPECIES, followed by my name and address.

"This is a hoax," I told the youth. "I never put up such a notice, and the one snake we have is plenty."

During the next week, we were offered six garter snakes, two pine snakes, one ring-necked brown snake, and one black snake. All were declined.

I also learned that our unknown ill-wisher had planted twenty or thirty of these posters in the windows of shops in the neighborhood. I visited some of the shopkeepers, who were glad to remove the signs. I asked for descriptions of the prankster but got contradictory accounts. This led me to believe that several persons were involved. I asked the president of the local chamber of commerce to spread the word of this hoax and to watch for any more attempts.

Next, I began receiving letters reading somewhat as follows: "Dear Mr. Newbury: I have read your ad in Natural History Magazine for July, in which you say you will pay for snakes. Do you want them alive or dead, and how much are you offering? Very truly yours ..."

I called up the magazine. Yes, somebody had placed the advertisement in the classified section. They did not know who, but the check had been signed with my name and had not bounced. So for some time I was busy writing post cards, saying no snakes, thank you.

So far, this harassment had been a minor nuisance. We were sorrier for the people taken in by these hoaxes than for ourselves.

"I think," I told Denise, "that it must be the Hagnophilists. Somebody reported to them what I said in that YMHA speech about picking up a rattlesnake in my bare hands. They jumped to the conclusion that I have a morbid phobia or horror of snakes and are trying to drive me out of my gourd."

"My poor Willy! If they only knew that you were a secret snake-lover at heart!"

The campaign then took a nasty turn. A neighbor told me that, a month before, he had received an anonymous poison-pen letter, aimed at me. He had turned it in to the local police. Other neighbors had received them, too.

"For God's sake!" I said. "Why didn't you tell me about it then?"

He shuffled his feet. "I was too embarrassed. We know you and Denise are all right—best neighbors we have, in fact—and we didn't want to upset you. Anyway, we couldn't imagine that they really meant a sober, conventional person like you."

I located some of the others who had received the letters, but none had kept them. Some had given them to the police, while others had discarded them.

I went to the police station, where Sergeant Day dug the letters out of their file. They all read:

Dear Neighbor:

Recently my young son was outside watering the lawn, when a man jumped out of his car and attacked the boy. He seized the hose and began chopping it up with a hatchet, screaming "Snake! Snake! Damned snake! I'll teach you to send snakes to torment me!" He abused my son so that he came home terrified.

For obvious reasons, I wish to remain anonymous in dealing with this matter. No father wants his children frightened by insane persons like this, who is probably still in the neighborhood.

I am circulating this letter in the hope that anyone who knows of somebody who has a psychotic problem about snakes will report it to the proper authorities, so that the victim of these delusions can be treated before he harms someone. He is described as a man in his late forties, tall and powerful, with graying hair cut short, a close-cut mustache, and driving a green foreign sports car. If you know any such person, try to convince him to turn himself in to the authorities so that he can be cured of his madness.

Sargeant Day said: "We had the boys watching for this guy for weeks without results. I guess if any of 'em saw you, they just said: 'Oh, that's Mr. Newbury the banker. He couldn't be the one.' Some kook, of course."

"Anyway," I said, "the kook gave me a flattering description. Can you trace the author of this letter?"

Day shook his head. "The envelopes were postmarked from the center-city post office. If you've had any crank letters, you could compare the typing with that of this letter. It was typed on a manual typewriter with standard elite type. Notice that the capital N is battered, the lower-case a has lost its tail, and the p hits above the line. But we can't examine every typewriter in the county."

Day made me a photocopy of the letter. At home, I went through my correspondence for comparison, but no letter that I had received in the past year had been typed on the troublemaker's machine.

While all this bothered me to some extent, it drove Denise frantic. She said: "When we were married, Willy darling, you should have come to France to live instead of taking me to America. We French are more logical; we do not commit such bêtises."

The following week, the parcel service delivered a carton, securely bound with heavy staples and adhesive tape, but with several small holes punched in it. Foreseeing a struggle to get it open, Denise left that job for me when I got home. I got a screwdriver, a knife, and a pair of pliers out of the tool box, set the carton on the kitchen stepladder, and got to work. In a few minutes I lifted the top of the carton.

Up popped a mouse-colored, serpentine head, and a forked tongue flicked out at me. As I stood there stupidly, movable ribs on the sides of the neck spread themselves, disclosing a cobra's hood.

I jumped back, yelling: "Denise! Get the hell out of here!"

"Why, Willy?" came Denise's voice from the next room. "Is something the matter?"

The cobra poured out of the carton to the floor. There seemed to be no end to it. I guessed it to be at least ten feet long. (It was twelve.) It was not even the ordinary Indian cobra, but the hamadryad or king cobra, the biggest and meanest of all.

"Never mind!" I screamed. "Just run like hell! It's a cobra!"

The cobra reared up until the first yard of its length was vertical and lunged at me. Luckily, the cobra's lunge is slower than the strike of an American pit viper, such as a rattlesnake. I jumped back, so that its stroke fell short.

The snake then tried to crawl towards me, but the slick vinyl floor gave it no purchase. It thrashed from side to side, fluttering like a flag in the breeze but making only slight forward progress.

Backing away, I passed the broom closet. I opened the door in hope of finding a weapon. There were a broom and a mop, but their handles were too long for that limited space. Then I spotted the plumber's friend, with a stout thirty-inch wooden handle.

As the cobra, still skidding, inched towards me, I faced it, gripping the end with a rubber plunger. When the snake began again to rear up, I stepped forward and made a two-handed slash at its neck, like a golf stroke. The stick connected with a crack, hurling the cobra sideways.

The creature went into convulsions, thrashing and writhing, knotting and unknotting. I struck at the head again and again, but this was not really necessary. My first blow had broken its neck. Its skin now decorates my den.

Esau Drexel said: "Willy, we've got to do something. Some day I'll have to retire, and the Harrison Trust will need at least one man with his head screwed on right."

I said: "True enough, Esau, but what? The return address on that package was a phony. The cobra was stolen from the zoo—by a pretty brave thief, I'd say. The cops say they're up against a dead end. That private detective didn't do a thing but send in a whopping bill."

"Maybe if you gave your story to the newspapers, it would flush out the Hagnophilists."

"All that would get me would be litigation. I have nothing but an inference to connect them with this sending of serpents. My lawyer warns me that those characters are both crazy and dangerous. If anybody writes something they don't like, they sue him for ten megabucks. The suits never come to trial, but the threats and harassment keep most of their critics quiet."

"Well," said Drexel, "when all the natural means have been exhausted, we must try the unnatural ones. I told you about my grandson George and the Scientific Sorcerers, didn't I?"

"Yes. Set a thief to catch a thief, so to speak?"

"What have we got to lose?"

"Will it cost more dough?"

"The bank will pick up the tab. We'll charge it to 'security,' which won't be any lie."

'"Public relations' might be better. Anyway, better not let the stockholders or the Federal Reserve boys know."

"I won't. But I'll get in touch with the Reverend Sung's cult."

The Reverend Sung Li-pei, late of Taiwan, was a short, round-faced man with an air of intense sincerity. I did not assume that this air truthfully reflected the inner Sung. Having come across many con men, I have found that all of them radiated bluff honesty and sterling worth. Otherwise, how could they make their livings as crooks?

Sung began: "Mr. Newbury, you wish to have this persecution by the minions of Mr. Bergius stopped, is that light?"

"That's light—I mean right."

"That is what I said, light. Now the spell of the Red Dragon is very expensive, as its results are often fatal—"

"I don't want to kill the guy," I said, "just make him harmless, so he'll let me alone. Better yet, make him stop conning my depositors into giving him all their worldly goods."

Sung put his fingertips together and thought. Then he said: "In that case, the spell of the Gleen—ah—Green Dlagon would be more suitable. Some of the entities I control can, I believe, lender our Mr. Bergius as harmless as a new-hatched chick, ha-ha." He gave a little forced smile.

"You won't hurt him physically?"

"No, nothing like that. You will have to attend the Sabbat. It will be held in my house this evening, beginning at eleven p.m. Now may I have your check for one thousand dollars, prease?"

"I prefer to pay in cash," I said, handing him an envelope containing ten hundreds.

He counted the bills, held them up to the light, and finally grunted satisfaction. "Good-day, then, Mr. Newbury. I shall see you tonight, yes?"

Sung held out, not in some spooky, crumbling old mansion, but in a neat, prosaic modern suburban home a few miles from my own house. The lights on the front terrace were lit to show the house number. Inside, a couple of white-clad fellows in turbans, evidently Sung's servants, flitted about.

"Ah, right on time, Mr. Newbury," said the Reverend Sung, shaking hands. "Light this way, prease ... You understand that you will not be introduced to the other members of the coven. They might incur unfortunate plejudices if their scientific activity were known. Here is the dressing room. Please put your valuables in this box, lock it, and hang the key around your neck."

"Why?"

"Because you will next lemove all your clothing and leave it here. The box is to make sure that nothing will turn up missing, ha-ha."

"You mean, I've got to strip to the buff?"

"Yes. That is necessary for the spell."

I sighed. "Well, my wife and I have gone nuding in France, but this is the first time for me in this country."

I started to unbutton and unzip, wishing that I did not have that slight middle-aged bulge below the equator. It is nothing like Drexel's real paunch; but, despite exercise and calorie-counting, I am no longer so flat in the belly as in my youth.

Sung donned a black robe. He led me, feeling very naked and a little chilly despite the summer warmth, down the cellar stairs.

The place was lit by black candles, burning with a greenish light. On the concrete floor had been drawn or painted a pentacle or magical diagram. Around this sat twelve naked men and women.

"You will take that vacant space, Mr. Newbelly," said Sung, pointing.

I lowered myself between two of the women. The concrete felt cold on my rump. I glanced at my neighbors.

The one on the left was elderly and not well preserved; she sagged and bulged in all the wrong places. The one on my right, on the other hand, was young and well-stacked. Her face was not pretty, at least in the crepuscular light; but she more than made up for it elsewhere. She whispered:

"Hello—ah?"

"Call me Bill," I whispered back. Nobody calls me "Bill," but "Willy," short for "Wilson." Still, this seemed the best way to handle the situation. "Good-evening—ah?"

"Marcella."

"Good-evening, Marcella."

Somebody shushed us, and the Reverend Sung stepped into the diagram. He raised his arms and said something in Chinese; then to the circle:

"Tonight, fliends, we shall invoke the spell of the Green Dragon for our friend here, to protect him from the unjust persecution to which he have been subjected by that gang of pseudo-scientific, pseudo-magical fakers, of whose abominations we are all aware. We shall start by singing the Li Piao Erh. Are you ready?"

The gang went into some Chinese chant. I am told that Chinese music, like that of the bagpipes, can be enjoyed as much as that of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, when one has been educated to it. 1, alas, never have had this opportunity, so to me Chinese music still sounds like a cat fight.

The song over, Sung stepped outside the circle' and said: "Now join hands, prease. You, too, Mr. Newbury."

I joined hands with those two women. There followed endless chants, invocations, and responses, some by Sung and some by the circle. It went on and on. Since most of it was in Chinese, it meant nothing to me.

I began to find this spate of meaningless chatter tedious. My mind wandered to my right-hand companion. Now, I am no swinger; but still, the sight of well-turned female flesh still arouses my normal male reactions.

In fact, it aroused them in an all-too-visible way. My God, I thought, what shall I do about this? I'm sure it's not on the program. What will they do to me if they see me here with a totem pole sticking up from my lap?

By doubling up my legs, I managed to hide the offending organ. I tried mentally reciting the multiplication table. But the devil would not down.

Then something drove lustful thoughts from my head. In the center, a dim luminescence took form. It looked like a patch of luminous fog, glowing a faint, soft green. It brightened and became more substantial but did not take any definite shape.

Sung shouted in shrill Chinese. The circle repeated his phrases in unison. Sung's voice rose to a shriek. The green light faded. Sung staggered and collapsed.

A couple of sitters caught him as he fell and eased him down. Someone else flipped the light switch. The light showed thirteen naked people including myself, some sitting, some standing, and some scrambling ungracefully to their feet. They were of various ages, displaying a variety of bushes of pubic hair.

While I wondered whether to call an ambulance, Sung's voice came weakly out of the group around him: "I all light, please. Just give me minute."

Presently he got up, seeming none the worse. He said: "This incident shows that these evil cultists have strong magical defenses. Let us hope that the influences we have sent to counteract their malignant plots will not recoil upon us or upon Mr. Newbury. This is all we can do for the present, so let us adjourn upstairs."

I straggled up the stairs with the rest and joined them in the dressing room. In that crowded space, I tried to don my clothes without poking anyone in the eye.

I recovered my wallet from the lock box and followed the rest out into the living room. Sung's servants had prepared ice cream, cake, and coffee. Now the coven looked like any gathering of American suburban bourgeoisie.

They chattered among themselves. Most of their talk was about people I did not know. There were several of these covens, all apparently full of intriguing and scheming for power, just as in any corporation or governmental department.

Marcella came up, with a coffee cup in one hand and a slice of cake in the other. "Bill," she said, "wasn't it a thrill? It's my first Green Dragon. We ought to get together again, since you're such a fine, upstanding man." She giggled.

I admit that, for once in my otherwise happy married life, I was tempted, but only for a moment. Besides my family feelings, I have my image as a banker, sober and staid to the point of stuffiness, to maintain. I am not really so stodgy (I have even been known to vote Democratic), but it's good for business. I said:

"Yes, I guess we ought, but I've got to run along. Goodnight, Marcella."

The next day, I tried to concentrate on my business, but my mind kept wandering to the Reverend Sung's ominous remark about his spell's recoiling back on me. Of course I did not really believe it could; but still ...

The day after that, I left the Harrison Trust at noon to drive home for lunch. I saw a crowd in the street and walked towards it, wondering if there had been an accident.

It was the Master in his white robe, strolling along and talking, while peeling bills from an enormous wad and handing them to his nearest hearers. His deep voice intoned:

"... whosoever believes in me shall not perish but shall have eternal life. For I am no longer Ludwig Bergius, but the true son of God, whose spirit has taken possession of the body of that misguided mortal Bergius. I that speak unto you am he. Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food that gives eternal life. I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness ..."

The police struggled with the crowd, but the sight of money being given away was driving the people frantic. They surged and pushed. They began to shout and to claw one another to reach the Master.

A siren gave a low, tentative growl, and an ambulance nosed into the throng. Three men in white coats jumped out and, with help from the cops, pushed their way to Bergius. They took him by the arms, spoke soothingly into his ears, and led him unresisting away to the ambulance. The vehicle backed out of the crush, turned, and purred away.

Somebody tugged my sleeve. It was McGill, the treasurer. "Willy! I've been looking for you. Know what's happened? Mrs. Dalton and the rest have been coming in to reinstate their accounts. They say the Master gave them back their stuff. What do you make of it?"

"I'd have to think," I said. "Right now my mind is on lunch."

Later, Esau Drexel said: "Well, Willy, I guess your Taiwanese shaman earned his grand. No more sendings of snakes?"

"No."

"Luckily we've got a good county mental hospital. Might even cure this so-called Master."

"Do you want that?" I asked.

"Oh, I see. You think he might go back to culting." He sighed. "I don't know. We can assume that Sung is a faker like the rest. In that case, Bergius' mind just cracked under the strain of messiahship, so he succumbed to delusions of divinity, irrespective of Sung's spells.

"Or we can assume that Sung's treatment really worked the change in the man. In that case, was Bergius a real representative of some Interstellar Council, before the spell drove him nuts? Or was he a faker before and—and—"

"And a genuine incarnation of Jesus afterwards, you're saying?"

"Jeepers! I hadn't thought that far. Well, it's been said that, if Jesus did come again, he'd be locked up as a lunatic." Drexel gave a little shudder. "I don't like to think about it. Let's tackle something easy, like the relation between the rediscount rate and the rate of inflation."