Avon Fantasy Reader No. 11 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“What is needed is almost a religious reform,’’ ventured the governot. ‘‘Not so much a prohibitory law as a sense of the unique position of man in the scheme of nature, and that, of course, is religion.” The big brown leather man drained off the last of his gin and leaned forward. “I wonder if the doctor and I could go out there and be of any service, Governor?” he asked. ‘We never have been of any service, either of us to any one, not even to ourselves.” “It ought to be interesting,” said the governor, “an attempt to widen the gap between gorillas and men in the consciousness of the Baloongas— and it might possibly be dangerous.” This is really as far as the writer overheard this conversation, because at this point the rector put in his appearance at the Government House and took us in tow for the Anglican church. It seemed that it was an important day religiously, because a number of new converts had been made among the nearer Baloongas and they were come to take the blessed sacrament for the first time. After the services I did not see Mogglesby again. Neither did I learn whether he and the doctor ever started for the uncivilized Baloongas, or with what credentials they were armed. However, three months later I did encounter the doctor a second time in a village on the Belgian Congo. The meeting was quite odd. At first the doctor denied his identity. He swore up and down that he had never heard of such a man as Mogglesby. He persisted in this denial even when I recalled the details of our conversation on the governor's piazza. This denial, how- ever, the doctor made when he was completely sober. Several hours later, when he told me the story. of what happened to Mog- glesby, the doctor was very deunk. Indeed the writer would gladly put the whole narrative down to the fumes of an alcoholized fancy were it not for the fact that the doctor's tale held implications entirely beyond the reach of that little rabbit of a man’s comprehension. Note— After the galley sheets of this article were received from the printer the editor cabled the Ene: lish governor at Ghandis for any confirmation of the facts herein set forth. The governor cabled in reply that‘on August 28th the uncivilized Eastern Baloongas of his province did come en masse and become communicants of the English church in Ghandis. Whether that proves the story, or whether the story arose out of the conversion of the cannibals, remains a matter of speculation. Any readers of this periodical in or near Ghandis, British Baloongaland, West Africa, are invited _ to send in statements of anything they know about the matter. Any such communications would ~ be of more value if given under the formal jurat of a notary. , At the editor’s request, the writer has cast his material in the form of fiction to avoid the prolixity and repetition of unedited conversation, N THEIR fourth day out of Ghan- dis, Mogglesby and the doctor came to the eastern limits of the civilized Baloongas. On the morning of the fifth day, Mokato, the head-man of the 43 CoMmicbooks. com