Mrs. Ward and Pinkney informed him simultaneously that it was a propaganda weekly, Mrs. Ward with a coquettish shake of her finger and a somewhat more pronounced appearance of her double chin.
“Captain Hamilton has just been initiated,” explained Pinkney apologetically. “Mrs. Ward, here, is the brains of the Tribe.”
She laughed.
“Here it is,” she said, handing the magazine to Robert. “Aren’t men the flatterers? There’s a corker in this week about the Catholics. You wanna read it. Didja see last week’s Jew article, Mr. Pinkney? Griffith wrote ’em. There’s some swell stuff about the Inquisition. I don’t see where he reads so much.”
Hamilton glanced over the first page of The Clarion. There was an engraving of de Torquemada with the caption, “Do You Want Him Here?” beneath. But before he could read beyond the first paragraph—a series of queries, as to whether we wanted this or that medieval institution here—he became conscious of voices raised in the office of the Sublime Headman. First an impassioned, angry voice. The words were indistinguishable. Then the angry voice of the minister. Robert recognized the cadences, rolling in anger:
“To violate your oath means disgrace, dishonor and death.”
A door flew open. The voices ceased abruptly. A white-faced man strode out of the room. He stopped in embarrassment as he saw Pinkney, twisted his hat, screwed his lips into a smile and mumbled a greeting, then stumbled out of the room. Robert’s hands involuntarily crushed the copy of The Clarion. A buzzer sounded.
“Come in, gentlemen,” called a sunny voice.
“Walk right in there,” beamed Mrs. Ward, adjusting a new sheet in her typewriter. “He’s in there alone with Griffith now.”
The Rev. Mr. Lister was seated at a mahogany desk—a tall impressive figure in frock coat, wing collar and black cravat—a dignified and picturesque survival of, say, the middle of the nineteenth century, with a wavy mane parted at one side and brushed back from a high forehead; thin lips of the orator; intent pale blue eyes.