mistake about old Bill Smiles, although he couldn't move. They would
have given up the treasuries of the gulfs sooner than let men hear the
prayers they said or guess their love for the goddess. It is the
intimate secret of the sea.

The sailor paused. And, in my eagerness to hear what lyrical or
blasphemous thing those figureheads prayed by moonlight at midnight in
the sea to the woman of marble who was a goddess to ships, I pressed
on the sailor more of my Gorgondy wine that the gnomes so wickedly
brew.

I should never have done it; but there he was sitting silent while the
secret was almost mine. He took it moodily and drank a glass; and with
the other glasses that he had had he fell a prey to the villainy of
the gnomes who brew this unbridled wine to no good end. His body
leaned forward slowly, then fell on to the table, his face being
sideways and full of a wicked smile, and, saying very clearly the one
word, "Hell," he became silent for ever with the secret he had from
the sea.





How Ali Came to the Black Country

Shooshan the barber went to Shep the maker of teeth to discuss the
state of England. They agreed that it was time to send for Ali.

So Shooshan stepped late that night from the little shop near Fleet