We waited
for the Intelligence Officer to reply. We knew him. The Intelligence
Officer said nothing. He drew something from his pocket. It was a parcel
wrapped in cloth-of-gold. He removed the cloth-of-gold and there was
discovered a casket, which he unlocked with a key attached to his
identity disc. Inside the casket was a padlocked box, which he opened
with a key attached by gold wire to his advance pay-book. Inside the box
was a roll of silk. To cut it all short, he unwound puttee after puttee
of careful wrapping till he reached a chamois-leather chrysalis, which
he handled with extreme reverence, and from this he drew something with
gentle fingers, and set it on the table-cloth before the goggle-eyed
Jackson.
"A pipe," said Jackson.
There was a shriek of horror. The Intelligence Officer fainted. Here was
wanton sacrilege.
"Man," said the iron-nerved Bombing Officer, "it's a Brownhill."
"What's a Brownhill?" asked Jackson.
We gasped. How could we begin to tell him of that West End shrine from
which issue these lacquered symbols of a New Religion?
The Intelligence Officer was reviving. We looked to him.
"The prophet Brownhill," he said, "was once a tobacconist--an ordinary
tobacconist who sold pipes.
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