"That is a token that your word has been accepted by the brethren, who, quite unknown to you, are gathered around the cell listening very carefully and observantly to your words, and particularly to the tones in which they are uttered. Thus encouraged, I am at liberty to proceed; and, first, I must tell you why the Order of St Bruno came into existence. Not many years ago there was no such body of men in any country in the world. Now we number over two thousand adherents, and every day witnesses fresh accessions to our membership. The idea at the root of our brotherhood is a very curious, but also a very powerful one. It owes its origin to a man named Bruno Delganni, who was for many years a translator in one of our Government offices--the Foreign Office--and who suddenly inherited a large sum of money--nearly half-a-million, I believe. As it happened, his years of servitude to red tape had given him a very hearty disgust for, and contempt with, the ordinary Government servants. His idea was that they are all machine-made dummies, and he trembled to think what would happen to England should she ever get involved in a really serious quarrel with the European Powers. These men, he argued, are for the most part worse than useless in their present positions. Picture an invasion of England by a large armed force--where would they be? At their desks probably, sorting their papers and indexing their previous performances. Not a dozen of them have in them the making of a strong man in an emergency, for the system on which we train our Government servants in every department is to stamp out of them all the fine, heroic, unselfish qualities and to leave them mere calculating or recording machines. As a consequence, all the business of the country would be at a deadlock. The chaos would be awful to contemplate.