Hadrian read these letters through two or three times, noting the yapping and the yowling of the one, the panting and the whining of the other, the barking of both. He turned to the window and looked at nothing until He had finished His cigarette. His thin lips stiffened in scorn and drew downward into the straight inflexible line. His impulse was to make an end of the male animal in a tank of aquafortis, if such a convenience only had formed part of the pontifical paraphernalia: as for the female, he remembered George Meredith's sentence, and would have liked to squeeze all the acid out of her at one grip and toss her to the divinities who collect exhausted lemons. The next minute, "The dogs, the dirty abject obscene dogs." He spat suddenly; and carried the letters to the safe in the bedroom where He locked them up. He prohibited Himself from taking further note of them. He was conscious that this course was quite wrong. But there it was. He had a busy afternoon before Him; and He diligently read in His breviary to prepare for Himself a convenient frame of mind. Pursuing His policy of emphasizing the difference between the Church and the World, He had summoned the generals of religious orders. To each of these He wished to say some words of admonition, words which would remain in the memory, and be passed from mind to mind, from mystic to thyrsos-bearer, from general to postulant. He rather enjoyed the sticking of labels on people and things now, because He could do it to some purpose. On the other hand, He had a feeling that He only was touching surfaces. Still, here and there the surface might be soft and capable of receiving impression: or here and there might be a crevice or a gap which He could fill with a cartridge. Somehow, anyhow, His words and acts must be made to penetrate to the roots of things, to influence fundamentals.