"Fie! This is a cheap variety farce! How can you occupy yourself with such trifles, Mr. Wondergood?"
"But it is not I who am occupying myself with them, Signor Magnus!"
"And how about the interviews? What about that flight of yours? You should drive them away. This humbles your...three billions. And is it true that you delivered some sort of a sermon?"
The joy of play forsook me. Unwilling as Magnus was to listen to me, I told him all about my sermon and those credulous fools who swallowed sacrilege as they do marmalade.
"And did you expect anything different, Mr. Wondergood?"
"I expected that they would fall upon me with clubs for my audacity: When I sacrilegiously bandied about the words of the Testament...."
"Yes, they are beautiful words," agreed Magnus. "But didn't you know that all their worship of God and all their faith are nothing but sacrilege? When they term a wafer the body of Christ, while some Sixtus or Pius reigns undisturbed, and with the approval of all Catholics as the Vicar of Christ, why should not you, an American from Illinois, call yourself at least...his governor? This is not meant as sacrilege, Mr. Wondergood. These are simply allegories, highly convenient for blockheads, and you are only wasting your wrath. But when will you get down to _business_?"
I threw up my hands in skillfully simulated sorrow:
"I _want_ to do something, but I _know_ not what to do. I shall probably never get down to business until you, Magnus, agree to come to my aid."
He frowned, at his own large, motionless, white hands and then at me:
"You are too credulous, Mr. Wondergood. This is a great fault when one has three billions. No, I am of no use to you. Our roads are far apart."
I expected him to strike me for this gentle _dear_, which I uttered in my best possible falsetto. But I ventured to continue. With all the sweetness I managed to accumulate in Rome, I looked upon the dim physiognomy of my friend and in a still gentler falsetto, I asked:
"And of what nationality are you, my _dear_...Signor Magnus? I suspect for some reason that you are not Italian?"
"My country?... Omne solum liberam libero patria. I suppose you do not know Latin? It means: Where freedom is there is the fatherland of every free man. Will you take breakfast with me?"