I said nothing. It was just as well to get past this first obstacle all at once. There was no reason of course to scorn that necessary if overwrought profession; yet somehow the thought of a savior emerging from those unctuous formaldehyde-smelling ranks seemed ludicrous. I reminded myself that one of the more successful messiahs had been a carpenter and that another had been a politician ... but an embalmer! My anticipation of great news was chilled; I prepared myself for grim comedy. Iris would tell me nothing more about the meeting or about _him_ as we crossed the lawn. She opened the door to the house and we stepped into a softly lighted anteroom. A policeman and a civilian, the one gloomy and the other cheerful, greeted us. “Ah, Miss Mortimer!” said the civilian, a gray, plump pigeon of a man. “And a friend, how good to see you both.” No this was not _he_. I was introduced to Mr. Dormer who chirped on until he was interrupted by the policeman. “Come on, you two, in here. Got to get the prints and the oath.” Iris motioned me to follow the policeman into a sideroom, an office. I’d heard of this national precaution but until now I had had no direct experience of it. Since the attempt of the communists to control our society had, with the collapse of Russian foreign policy, quite failed, our government in its collective wisdom had decided that never again would any sect or party, other than the traditional ones, be allowed to interrupt the rich flow of the nation’s life. As a result, all deviationist societies were carefully watched by the police who fingerprinted and photographed those who attended meetings, simultaneously exacting an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Flag which ended with that powerful invocation which a recent president’s speech writer had, in a moment of inspiration, struck off to the delight of his employer and nation: “In a true democracy there is no place for any disagreement on truly great issues.” It is a comment on those years, now happily become history, that only a few ever considered the meaning of this resolution, proving of course that words are never a familiar province to the great mass which prefers recognizable pictures to even the most apposite prose. Iris and I repeated dutifully in the presence of the policeman and an American flag, the various national sentiments. We were then allowed to go back to the anteroom and to Mr. Dormer who himself led us into the chapel.