Gussie rose quickly. "Oh, Miss Pritchett," she cried, "what a great day for England this will be!"
CHAPTER VII
THE OFFICES OF THE "LUTHER LEAGUE"—AN INTERIOR
On the first floor of a building in the Strand, wedged in between a little theatre and a famous restaurant, the offices of the "Luther League" were established, and by late autumn were in the full swing of their activity.
Visitors to this stronghold of Protestantism mounted a short flight of stairs and arrived in a wide passage. Four or five doors opening into it all bore the name of the association in large letters of white enamel. The first door bore the legend:
"PUBLISHING AND GENERAL OFFICE INQUIRIES"
This room, the one by which the general public were admitted to the inner sanctuaries, was a large place fitted up with desks and glass compartments in much the same way as the ordinary clerks' office of a business house. A long counter divided the room, and upon it were stacked piles of the newly published pamphlet literature of the League. Here could be seen that stirring narrative, Cowed by the Confessional; or, The Story of an English Girl in the Power of the "Priests." This publication, probably the cheapest piece of pornography in print at the moment, was published, with an illustration, at three pence. Upon the cover a priest—for some unexplained reason in full eucharistic vestments—was pointing sternly to the armour-plated door of a grim confessional, while a trembling lady in a large picture hat shrunk within.
This little book was flanked by what appeared to be a semi-jocular work called Who Said Reredos? and bore upon its cover the already distinguished name of Samuel Hamlyn, Jr. The eye fell upon that popular pamphlet in a wrapper of vivid scarlet—now in its sixtieth thousand—known as Bow to the "Altar" and Light Bloody Mary's Torture Fires Again.
As Soon Pay the Devil as the Priest lay by the side of a more elaborately bound volume on which was the portrait of a lady. Beneath the picture appeared the words of the title, My Escape; or, How I Became a Protestant, by Jane Pritchett.