The fat crackled and sputtered. In thirty-six hours the business of the town was at a standstill, and by that time Mr. Bly had visited three other towns, and they too succumbed to his passion. At every town he visited he was welcomed with brass bands and red carpets, and his orders were obeyed. The Labour Agitators of the neighbouring countries desired his services and cabled for him, and he promised to go as soon as Jah was driven out of Fatland. The strikes were begun in feasting and merrymaking, and things were done that delighted Mr. Nicodemus and the widow Martin’s heart: “The men are becoming quite themselves again.” And Mr. Nicodemus gazed upon it all and sighed: “Ah! If only Hell were open!” The widow Martin gazed upon him voluptuously and muttered: “It would be just ’Eaven to keep that public you’re always talking about for ever and ever with you.” XIV: SMOULDERING The strikers soon came to grips with want and the very poor were brought to starvation. Only the more fiercely for that did their passion glow. They forgot all about Mr. Bly and Jah: they were only determined not to give in. They knew not wherefore they were fighting, and were savagely resolved not to return to their old ways without some palpable change. Forces and emotions had been stirred which led them to look for a miracle, and without the miracle they preferred to die. The miracle did not come and many of them died. XV: SUCCOUR With a moderate but assured income the Fattish are humane, that is to say, they grope like shadows through life and shun the impenetrable shadow of death. They shuddered to think of the very poor dying with their eyes gazing forward for the miracle that never came, and they said: “To think of their finding no miracle but death! It is too horrible. Can such things be in Fatland? Why don’t we do something?” So they formed committees and wrote to the newspapers and started various funds; and they invited Mr. Bly to lecture in aid of them. He came to Bondon, lectured, and became the fashion. He discovered to his amazement that there were rich people in Fatland, and these rich people formed Anti-Jah societies. Enormous sums of money were collected for the strikers, because the rich were so delighted to be amused. Mr. Bly amused them enormously. Mr. Nicodemus gave a course of lectures on the Kingdom from which Jah had deposed him, and Mrs. Martin held meetings for women only, to expound her views of men. For years the rich people had not been so vastly entertained, and they poured out money for the strikers. Unfortunately their subscriptions could buy little else for the very poor but coffins, and of them the supply soon came to an end. Famine and pestilence stalked abroad, but only the more fiercely did Mr. Bly urge the destruction of Jah, and the more blindly and desperately did the starving poor of Fatland look for the miracle.