SMOKING, DRINKING, PROFANITY, FORBIDDEN AS YOU PASS THROUGH THIS TOWN.
YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO POLLUTE THE AIR.
MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. MOST PEOPLE LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.”
“Oh! Truly!” gasped Janet.
“It was what Eric was looking for—the entrance to the town of fanatics. There was a blank-looking group of houses marked at intervals by tall, white board signs—black letters on a white ground. He drove slowly. It was Sunday and the stillness was absolute. There was a building that might be a hotel—on the veranda were vacant chairs tilted against the rail; a few shops, gray with closed doors; houses gray, too, all with doors shut tight, curtains made to screen. The main street, three or four blocks long, was deserted. At a far corner a man appeared, took a look at the coming car, and stepped out of sight. A woman who came out on her porch, slipped back, and shut the door sharply. She was gray, too—clothes and hair; the distant man had seemed gray—a brown-gray, like the dust that whirled.
“He stopped the car again to read another sign, this one as large as a house front, full of preachments, repeating the words that he had first read:
MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. THEY LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.
NO OUTSIDE PEOPLE OR INSTITUTIONS WANTED HERE.
THE DANCE IS OF THE DEVIL, THE THEATRES ARE DEVIL-BEGOTTEN.
“And again: