“Horrible!” replied Mr. Balmy fiercely. “You must be short-sighted, or you could never have called my attention to it. Let us get it behind us as fast as possible, and not so much as look at it.” “Oh yes, yes,” said my father, “it is indeed horrible, I had not seen what it was.” He had not the faintest idea what the matter was, but he let Mr. Balmy walk a little ahead of him, so that he could see the banners, the most important of which he found to display a balloon pure and simple, with one figure in the car. True, at the top of the banner there was a smudge which might be taken for a little chariot, and some very little horses, but the balloon was the only thing insisted on. As for the procession, it consisted entirely of men, whom a smaller banner announced to be workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works. There was a third banner, which said, “Science as well as Sunchildism.” CHAPTER XV: THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND CERTAIN EXTRACTS ARE READ FROM HIS SUPPOSED SAYINGS “It is enough to break one’s heart,” said Mr. Balmy when he had outstripped the procession, and my father was again beside him. “‘As well as,’ indeed! We know what that means. Wherever there is a factory there is a hot-bed of unbelief. ‘As well as’! Why it is a defiance.” “What, I wonder,” said my father innocently, “must the Sunchild’s feelings be, as he looks down on this procession. For there can be little doubt that he is doing so.” “There can be no doubt at all,” replied Mr. Balmy, “that he is taking note of it, and of all else that is happening this day in Erewhon. Heaven grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the innocent as well as the guilty.” “I doubt,” said my father, “his being so angry even with this procession, as you think he is.” Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he found an excuse for rapidly changing the conversation. Moreover he was angry with himself for playing upon this poor good creature. He had not done so of malice prepense; he had begun to deceive him, because he believed himself to be in danger if he spoke the truth; and though he knew the part to be an unworthy one, he could not escape from continuing to play it, if he was to discover things that he was not likely to discover otherwise. Often, however, he had checked himself. It had been on the tip of his tongue to be illuminated with the words, Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men, They lay in bed till the clock struck ten, and to follow it up with, Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time My love looks fresh, in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the assertion here made about the Professors, and what statement he would connect with his own Erewhonian name; but he had restrained himself.