overpowering him, until he walked haggard and conquered in its shadow.
Not only to Anthony and Maury did he pour out his hopes and boasts and
indecisions, but to any one who could be prevailed upon to listen. He
called on polite but bewildered publishers, he discussed it with his
casual vis-a-vis at the Harvard Club; it was even claimed by Anthony
that he had been discovered, one Sunday night, debating the
transposition of Chapter Two with a literary ticket-collector in the
chill and dismal recesses of a Harlem subway station. And latest among
his confidantes was Mrs. Gilbert, who sat with him by the hour and
alternated between Bilphism and literature in an intense cross-fire.

"Shakespeare was a Bilphist," she assured him through a fixed smile.
"Oh, yes! He was a Bilphist. It's been proved."

At this Dick would look a bit blank.

"If you've read 'Hamlet' you can't help but see."

"Well, he--he lived in a more credulous age--a more religious age."

But she demanded the whole loaf:

"Oh, yes, but you see Bilphism isn't a religion. It's the science of all
religions." She smiled defiantly at him. This was the _bon mot_ of her
belief. There was something in the arrangement of words which grasped
her mind so definitely that the statement became superior to any
obligation to define itself. It is not unlikely that she would have
accepted any idea encased in this radiant formula--which was perhaps not
a formula; it was the _reductio ad absurdum_ of all formulas.