Robert slept late the next morning, ate a combination breakfast and luncheon and returned to his room. McCall! Friendship! The torn leaflets had been removed by the maid.
Robert removed his coat, collar and shirt and began, very deliberately, to shave. He had never distributed the Knights of Columbus oath. Freeman had assured him that whatever might be the veracity of the articles in The Beacon, the Knights of Columbus oath, at any rate, was accurate. It had been obtained by the Tribe itself.
Robert dried his face. Why must a person always defend what he has done? One may act simply on an impulse—because some one else wants him to do something, because the community in which he lives, his social set or public opinion desires it. But once a person has acted, he builds up reasons to justify himself. Take the Knights of Columbus oath. He had not troubled to investigate it. He had accepted it because it was part of the Tribe’s propaganda and because his father, his mother, Margaret, his social set, believed in the Tribe. The rational thing would be to weigh its value, to investigate its authenticity—and then to accept or reject it. It was the same way with other propaganda. If it was false, Freeman was always inventing excuses. Why had he not investigated their truth before circulating them! And yet, Freeman had insisted that the oath was true.
The telephone bell rang.
“Hello!” It was McCall. He was coming up. Robert took a long breath. McCall! Robert had not expected him to come back again. He wondered why—and was glad, immensely glad. The door opened.
“God, I’m glad—” Robert held out his hand.
“Shut up!” McCall looked very pale and serious, his lips tight. “I want you to listen to me! I think you’re either a scoundrel or a damn fool. I’ve thought it over all night and I’ve decided to be charitable and call you a damn fool.”
Robert started to say something. McCall put up his hand.
“If you interrupt me, I’m going. And if I go, you’ll never see me again. I said I decided that you were a damn fool. I decided that you joined the Tribe because you couldn’t get out of it or because you didn’t know its real object. Most members don’t. They think they’re joining some sort of a crusade. I think Lister is a sincere man, a sincere fool, a fanatic who would have fitted in somewhere beautifully in the Middle Ages and who didn’t know any more about the meaning of Christianity than the fanatics who burned heretics and witches three hundred years ago. That includes Catholics as well as Protestants. I’m not handing myself anything.
“Griffith I think is a crook—I say I think he is—because he personally gets a rake-off on every member, because he sells robes and masks at a profit that the Tribe would boycott a Jew for making, and because he sells the muddy river water used in your Tribal initiations for ten dollars a quart. I can’t conceive of any man with the broad mission he says he has, starting out by overcharging the brothers who are to carry out that mission with him. If you are an official, you know that these are facts and you also know that you get a rake-off for each new member. It is to your interest and to the interest of every Tribal officer to get as many memberships as you can—no matter how much class and racial hatred you spread in getting them—because it brings you actual money. If you can make people believe that the Pope is trying to control the American government, or that Jews, who form about three per cent of the population, are trying to overthrow all government, or that Negroes, who have been persecuted and tortured all their lives and are afraid to move, are plotting with the Bolsheviki or the Hindus to overthrow civilization, it means three dollars for Mr. Griffith, four dollars for the salesman who calls himself a Bogey and one dollar for the state salesman or Grand Bogey—per convert.