The hunchback looked at him, and adjusted his glasses.
"Yes, that will come later. 'Great Russia is falling into ruin. Evil is rampant in our country and horror prevails. People are oppressed by want. The heart has become perverted with envy. The patient and gentle Russian is perishing, and a heartless tribe ferocious with greed is being born, a race of wolves, cruel animals of prey. Faith is dissolved, and outside her fortress the people stand perturbed. Persons of depraved minds aim at the defenseless, take them captive with satanic shrewdness, and entice them onto the road of crime against all thy laws, Master of our lives.'"
"'Master?' That's for a bishop," grumbled the Smokestack.
"Don't you like it?"
"No, we must make it different."
"How?"
"We must tell him directly that a general revolt against life is stirring among the people, and that 'therefore Thou, who art called by God—'"
The hunchback shook his head disapprovingly.
"We may point out. We have no right to advise."
"Who is our enemy, and what is his name? Atheist, Socialist, and Revolutionist, a trinity. The destroyer of the family, the robber of our children, the fore-runner of the anti-Christ."