there on the occasion of his last visit.) "But you had better dry up
now, Ed," he continued somewhat caustically, "or there'll be no chance
of forming the Sorcery Society; it will be dissolved before it's
started. There's no need to ask if you've tried to carry out
instructions as to thoughts, I see it--in your faces. I could never
have believed one experimental week in badness would have made such a
difference to your looks."

"You told us to try hard!" Kelson murmured, "and naturally we did. I
reckon you've done the same by your expression. I should hardly have
known you."

"It shows pretty clearly," Curtis said, "what a lot of bad is latent
in most people; and that the right circumstances only are needed to
bring it out. Starvation, for instance, is calculated to bring out the
evil in any one--no matter whom. But what puzzles me, is how we have
escaped being caught!"

"That's a good sign," Hamar said. "It bears out what is written in the
book. If you give your whole mind to doing wrong during this trial
week you'll meet with no mishap. But you must be heart and soul in it.
Hunger made us--hunger has been our friend."

"What do you mean?" Curtis said.

"Why," Hamar replied, "if we hadn't been well-nigh starving we
shouldn't have been able to carry out the instructions quite so
thoroughly."

"Have you, too, stolen?" Curtis queried.