“I’ll tell it exactly as he told me. I’m sure I can. I could not forget it. He had driven ten miles through dust and wind with a thunderstorm rolling up ahead of him--purple storm with green fringe on it--the kind they have out there. He was whacking along when he caught sight of a sign by the roadside. He stopped and backed his car to read it. It said--I remember it exactly--it said: SMOKING, DRINKING, PROFANITY, FORBIDDEN AS YOU PASS THROUGH THIS TOWN. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO POLLUTE THE AIR. MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. MOST PEOPLE LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK.” “Oh! Truly!” gasped Janet. “It was what Eric was looking for--the entrance to the town of fanatics. There was a blank-looking group of houses marked at intervals by tall, white board signs--black letters on a white ground. He drove slowly. It was Sunday and the stillness was absolute. There was a building that might be a hotel--on the veranda were vacant chairs tilted against the rail; a few shops, gray with closed doors; houses gray, too, all with doors shut tight, curtains made to screen. The main street, three or four blocks long, was deserted. At a far corner a man appeared, took a look at the coming car, and stepped out of sight. A woman who came out on her porch, slipped back, and shut the door sharply. She was gray, too--clothes and hair; the distant man had seemed gray--a brown-gray, like the dust that whirled. “He stopped the car again to read another sign, this one as large as a house front, full of preachments, repeating the words that he had first read: MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. THEY LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK. NO OUTSIDE PEOPLE OR INSTITUTIONS WANTED HERE. THE DANCE IS OF THE DEVIL, THE THEATRES ARE DEVIL-BEGOTTEN. “And again: MOST PEOPLE ARE BAD. THEY LIE, STEAL, AND DRINK. “As he stood reading, he was conscious that men had appeared in the streets ahead and behind him. They fitted the houses--brown-gray, closed, shut tight. They walked slowly, eyes on the ground, but, as they passed him, he had a look from each. The looks were alike: ominous--hate snapped out at him from under briefly raised lids. Each face had a set mouth, with slashes down from its corners. Each head that turned slightly had--menace--hostile promises. “The storm was breaking: a flash of lightning swept down the street; thunder crashed; for a moment the wind ceased--it hung aloof and the calm was thick with the brown-gray of the town--with deep silence. A desert plain, a skiff alone on the ocean, would have been more friendly, he said.” “Where is the Romance?” some one asked, as Kent stopped.