once as he prayed to his fiftieth idol, a little green-jade god whom
the Chinese know, that all the idols were in league against him. When
Pombo discovered this he resented his birth bitterly, and made
lamentation and alleged that he was lost. He might have been seen then
in any part of London haunting curiosity-shops and places where they
sold idols of ivory or of stone, for he dwelt in London with others of
his race though he was born in Burmah among those who hold Ganges
holy. On drizzly evenings of November's worst his haggard face could
be seen in the glow of some shop pressed close against the glass,
where he would supplicate some calm, cross-legged idol till policemen
moved him on. And after closing hours back he would go to his dingy
room, in that part of our capital where English is seldom spoken, to
supplicate little idols of his own. And when Pombo's simple, necessary
prayer was equally refused by the idols of museums, auction-rooms,
shops, then he took counsel with himself and purchased incense and
burned it in a brazier before his own cheap little idols, and played
the while upon an instrument such as that wherewith men charm snakes.
And still the idols clung to their etiquette.

Whether Pombo knew about this etiquette and considered it frivolous in
the face of his need, or whether his need, now grown desperate,
unhinged his mind, I know not, but Pombo the idolater took a stick and
suddenly turned iconoclast.

Pombo the iconoclast immediately left his house, leaving his idols to
be swept away with the dust and so to mingle with Man, and went to an
arch-idolater of repute who carved idols out of rare stones, and put
his case before him. The arch-idolater who made idols of his own
rebuked Pombo in the name of Man for having broken his idols--"for
hath not Man made them?" the arch-idolater said; and concerning the