The room was carpeted with a fabric from Persia--the veritable peacock
blue and dark red of Teheran. The armchairs were upholstered in
vermilion leather. Everything harmonized and was in taste, and it was
with complacency that Levison looked round him and picked up the paper.
Almost the first thing that struck his eye was a paragraph headed
"Movements of Joseph."
Mr. Levison started, and read with great attention. The paragraph ran as
follows:--
"We are able to give our readers exclusive information as to the next
move in the vast campaign for the reformation of London which is being
undertaken by the teacher known as Joseph, in company with his
distinguished colleagues and helpers. One of the most crying evils of
the day is undoubtedly the fact that, while one section of the
population lives in a splendor and luxury perhaps unparalleled in the
history of civilization, another section, and this by far the larger,
lives under conditions of squalor so great that it becomes a horror,
conditions that can only be hinted at in polite society or in the public
prints. The state of the East End of London has long engaged the
attention of philanthropists, but very little has been done to
ameliorate it in comparison with its crying needs. Sociologists have
long since recognized that under present conditions very little can be
done until the rich property owners combine and agree to sacrifice a
portion of their emoluments in order to improve the condition of the
poor. The teacher Joseph has recognized this fact, and is beginning a
movement which may be very far-reaching in its consequences. To-day, we
understand, a party of wealthy and distinguished gentlemen will be taken
by the evangelist to some of the worst parts of the East End there to
see for themselves the true condition of affairs. The remarkable
personality which is at present the talk of London will indeed have
accomplished a greater miracle than any of those strange and unexplained
occurrences attributed to him if he can cleanse and purify one half-mile
of Stepney or Whitechapel. For our part, we wish Joseph and his helpers
every possible success in their endeavors."
Mr. Levison laid down the paper, and got up from his seat. He walked up
and down the room twice, looked at his breakfast, shook his head, and
then, going to a sideboard, poured some brandy from a tantalus into a
glass, added a little water with a hand that shook slightly, and drank
the mixture off.
So it was to be to-day, then? Mr. Levison had not realized the imminence
of his plot. It was one thing to reflect complacently that one had
arranged to remove a troublesome intruder from one's path on some
unspecified date; it was, as Levison realized now, quite another thing
to sit down and wait for the event to happen in an hour or two.
Levison looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. He supposed, though
he did not know with any certainty, that the party to the East End would
hardly start before midday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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