"Then of course youll go," I said.
"Why don't you go yourself, A W? Do you good to live out in the open."
"I can't afford the time, Joe; I have too many things that need my personal attention."
He struck a series of great thumping notes. "And so have I, A W, so have I. I'm afraid youll have to get somebody else."
I could neither understand nor shake his obstinacy and when I left them I had almost determined to abandon the whole project, for I could not think whom else trustworthy I could get. His idea of my own participation was fantastic; I had long since come to the point where it was necessary to delegate all such duties to subordinates.
60. Perhaps it was Joe's sly remark about it doing me good to be out in the open, or the difficulty of getting a conveyance, but I decided to walk to my hotel. Taxis of course disappeared with gasoline, but ingenious men, unwilling to be pauperized by accepting the dole, had devised rickshaws and bicycle carriages which were the only means of local transportation. The night was clear and cold, the stars gleaming in distant purity, but all around, the offensive smell of the disheveled city played on my disgusted nostrils.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Brother, are you saved?"
When the figure had come out from the shadow of a building to accost me my first thought had been of a holdup, but the odd salutation made this seem unlikely. "What do you want?" I asked.
"Brother, are you a Christian man?"
I resented the impertinence and started to walk on; he followed close beside me. "Harden not your heart, miserable sinner, but let Jesus dissolve your pride as he washes away your other sins. Be not high and mighty for the high shall be low and the mighty powerless; in a short time you will be food for grass. The Grass is food for the Ox, the divine Ox with seven horns which shall come upon the world with a great trumpeting and bellowing soon after the Forerunner."