Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/273

 that as the last of a long procession of goats he had made an undignified entrance, but his resentment at this died almost at once before the spectacle of the Great Religious Experimenter surrounded by gibbering Italians who seemed bent upon doing her some bodily violence. Fearful that Miss Fosdick had perhaps already been done away with he hurried forward through the midst of the flock of goats, driving them out of his path with blows of his malacca stick (just purchased on the strength of Aunt Bessie's legacy).

At sight of a male foreigner, even so harmless a male foreigner as Mr. Winnery, the workmen grew silent, and Pietro retired into concealment behind them. Mrs. Weatherby, with a new face composed almost instantaneously, floated forward and greeted him, explaining at the same time that she was having difficulties with the workmen. There was perhaps some confusion owing to their inability to understand each other. Perhaps Mr. Winnery would act as interpreter.

He addressed the workmen and received in reply a perfect torrent of explanation. They all spoke at once and into their soft voices they threw whole gamuts of seduction. It would perhaps never have finished but in the midst of it he turned to Mrs. Weatherby—"They are saying that you must not bury the statue again. It is an ancient god of fertility and if you bury it they say the crops will be blighted and the she-goats barren and the eggs unfertile. They say you will bring calamity on the neighborhood. It is an ancient god of fertility. Priapus, offspring of Dionysus and Aphrodite, or,