Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/69

 the last meeting, Chief. It was terrible; they talked religion until morning. Hubka moved that we hand over our establishments to the workers. Luckily, they forgot to take a vote on it. They were like men possessed."

Bondy gnawed at his fingers. "What on earth am I to do with them?"

"Hm, nothing whatever. It's a nervous disease of the age. Something of the sort crops up now and again in the papers, too, but they're so full of the Karburators that they haven't space for anything else. There's an appalling number of cases of religious mania. It's a physicial epidemic or something. The other day I saw Dr. Hubka preaching to a crowd of people in front of the Industrial Bank about seeking the inward light and making straight the path for God. Fearfully incoherent stuff. He wound up by performing miracles. Forst is at it too. Rosenthal is nothing short of insane. Miller, Homola and Kolator came out with a proposal for voluntary poverty. We can't possibly have another board-meeting. It's a regular madhouse, Chief. You'll have to take the whole idiotic business in hand."

"But, man, this is simply awful," groaned G. H. Bondy.

"It is indeed. Did you hear about the Sugar Bank? All the officials there were seized with it