Pugin listened, making little bows, sniffing the lettuce which the mastiff-man had so cunningly placed before his nose.
Then honestly and plainly and well, Adams told his tale, and the rabbit held up its hands in horror at the black doings disclosed to it. But it was horror divorced from sentiment. Pugin felt almost as great a revulsion toward the negroes upon whom these things were done as toward the doers.
He could not see the vast drama in its true proportions and its poetical setting of forest, plain, and sky. The outlandish names revolted him; he could not see Yandjali and its heat-stricken palms or M’Bassa burning in the sun.
But he listened politely and it was this that chilled the heart of the story-teller who instinctively felt that though he had shocked his hearer, he had not aroused that high spirit of revolt against injustice which converts a man into a living trumpet, a living axe, or a living sword.
Pugin would have been a great force could his sentiment have been awakened; but he could not see palm trees.
“What would you have? You cannot grow baobabs on the Boulevards.”
“Ma foi!” said he, “it is terrible what you tell me, but what are we to do?”
“I thought you might help,” said Adams.
“I? With all the power possible and goodwill. It is evident to me that should you wish for success in this matter, you should found a society.”
“Yes?”