"Bring forth the Mystic Symbols of the Order!" was the next command. The Mystic Symbols were placed on a stand in the middle of the room, and turned out to be a gilt fish about the size of a four-pound bass, a jar of human bones, and a rolled-up scroll said to contain the Gospels. The fish, as explained by the Deacon Militant, typified a great many things connected with early Christianity, and served always as a reminder of the password of the order. The relics in the jar were the bones of martyrs. The scroll was the Book of the Law. Amidon was becoming impressed: the solemn and ornate ritual and the dreadful symbols sent shivers down his inexperienced and unfraternal spine. Breaking in with uninitiated eyes, as he had done, now seemed more and more a crime. There was an "Opening Ode," which was so badly sung as to mitigate the awe; and an "order of business" solemnly gone through. Under the head "Good of the Order" the visiting brethren spoke as if it were a class-meeting and they giving "testimony," one of them very volubly reminding the assembly of the great principles of the order, and the mighty work it had already accomplished in ameliorating the condition of a lost and wandering world. Amidon felt that he must have been very blind in failing to note this work until it was thus forced on his notice; but he made a mental apology. "By the way, Brassfield," said Mr. Slater during a recess preceding the initiation of candidates, "you want to give Stevens the best you've got in the Catacombs scene. Will you make it just straight ritual, or throw in some of those specialities of yours?" "Stevens! Catacombs!" gasped Amidon, "specialties! I--" "I wish you could have been here when I was put through," went on Mr. Slater. "I don't see how any one but a professional actor, or a person with your dramatic gifts, can do that part at all--it's so sort of ripping and--and intense, you know. I look forward to your rendition of it with a good deal of pleasurable anticipation." "You don't expect me to do it, do you?" asked Amidon. "Why, who else?" was the counter-question. "We can't be expected to play on the bench the best man in Pennsylvania in that part, can we?" "Come, Brassfield," said the Sovereign Pontiff, "get on your regalia for the Catacombs. We are about to begin." "Oh, say, now!" said Amidon, trying to be off-hand about it, "you must get somebody else." "What's that! Some one else? Very likely we shall! Very likely!" thus the Sovereign Pontiff with fine scorn. "Come, the regalia, and no nonsense!" "I--I may be called out at any moment," urged Amidon, amidst an outcry that seemed to indicate a breach with the Martyrs then and there. "There are reasons why--" Edgington took him aside. "Is there any truth in this story," said he, "that you have had some trouble with Stevens, and discharged him?"