_60._ Perhaps it was Joe's sly remark about it doing me good to be out in the open, or the difficulty of getting a conveyance, but I decided to walk to my hotel. Taxis of course disappeared with gasoline, but ingenious men, unwilling to be pauperized by accepting the dole, had devised rickshaws and bicycle carriages which were the only means of local transportation. The night was clear and cold, the stars gleaming in distant purity, but all around, the offensive smell of the disheveled city played on my disgusted nostrils. "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Brother, are you saved?" When the figure had come out from the shadow of a building to accost me my first thought had been of a holdup, but the odd salutation made this seem unlikely. "What do you want?" I asked. "Brother, are you a Christian man?" I resented the impertinence and started to walk on; he followed close beside me. "Harden not your heart, miserable sinner, but let Jesus dissolve your pride as he washes away your other sins. Be not high and mighty for the high shall be low and the mighty powerless; in a short time you will be food for grass. The Grass is food for the Ox, the divine Ox with seven horns which shall come upon the world with a great trumpeting and bellowing soon after the Forerunner." I knew of the great multiplication of insanity and hoped I could reach the hotel before he grew violent. "What is your name?" I temporized. "Call me Brother Paul, for I was once Saul the worldly; now I am your brother in Christ." "Brother Paul! The radio preacher?" "We are all members one of another and He who watches the sparrow fall makes no distinction between one manmade label and another. All of us who have found Christ Jesus with the help of Brother Paul are called Brother Paul. Come to the Loving Arms, O miserable sinner, and be Brother Paul also." I thought it might be very confusing. "I have always been interested in religion." "O puny man. Interested in life and interested in death, interested in being and interested in begetting, interested in religion and interested in dung. Turn from those interests which the devil pays upon your soul's mortgage; your Savior resides in the heart of the Grass--withhold not your precious soul from Him. At this very moment the Forerunner is being sanctified and after her there will come the Ox to eat the Grass and then the end of the world. Give Brother Paul your worthless earthly possessions, give your soul to Jesus and hasten that glorious day. Hallelujah!" The fervid jumble ended in a near scream. What a waste of oratorical and perhaps organizational energy, I mused as I strode along rapidly, still intent on escaping the fanatic. Under different circumstances, I thought, a man like this might turn out to be a capable clerk or minor executive. Suddenly I had a hunch. "Mr--?" "Brother Paul. I have no earthly name." "I wish youd come with me for a few minutes; I have a proposition which might interest you."