Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/84

Rh even the smoking room. "Oughtn't they to be robbed to prevent them?"

"Yes; even robbed!" the girl had to agree honestly as she followed his glance about. "But I hope you were not plotting that then!" she laughed. "Not against mother, at least!"

"Oh, no; not just at that moment, Miss Varris," he reassured. "I was considering something far more furious than that. I was planning to write a book about them—and the cathedral towns!"

"What? After what you have said about the books already written?"

"Yes, Miss Varris," he replied sadly. "When I view this havoc of American homes which those books have wrought, and see how impossible it is to cure the victims even with the most skilful and persistent robbery, I am driven to the extreme of being willing to fight books on the cathedral towns with books. If I do, and I am spared the strength to give any conception of the truth of things going on in these towns, the prevailing passion for 64