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remarks with an attack on Popper, calling him “Austin Rotter” and “a low American farceur” and “a confidence trickster of the very lowest type,” and went on to bring a full and stinging indictment against American Gnomonism. No doubt, he said, the leadership in Indiana, U.S.A., meant well, but it was very weak. Substantial changes could be expected now that he, Hen, was on the scene. As Grand Prior of World Gnomonry he was seriously considering revocation of the charter of the American Temple in Burnette, and would certainly do so if that Temple did not act soon to purge itself of Popper and Popperism.
    All this, out of the blue. It was quite a spirited blast from such a frail figure. Mr. Jimmerson’s reply was strong stuff too. He gave an interview to a Chicago newspaper, saying it was shameful that a Master, albeit a junior one, of the Gnomon Society, a secret brotherhood based on principles of Hermetical and Pythagorean harmony, had seen fit not only to make such false and scandalous charges, but to make them publicly. As for any “charter,” there was none to be revoked, just as there was no such title in Gnomonry as “Grand Prior,” but if there was ever any revoking to be done, then he, Lamar Jimmerson, First Master of the New Cycle, successor to Pletho Pappus and tutor to Sydney Hen, would do it.
    Hen came back with another letter to the editor, a short one this time, to the Chicago newspaper. He wrote:
    Please be advised that the Gnomon Society can no longer recognize degrees awarded by the gang of Indiana ruffians led by the impostor Lamar Jimmerson, who styles himself First Master of the New Cycle. Lamar Jimmerson is Master of Nothing. He is a grey nullity whose teaching is worthless and whose conversation is tiresome beyond belief and whose book, The Jimmerson Spiral , purporting to contain some later writings of Pletho Pappus, is the most brazen forgery since the Donation of Constantine.
    Trailing after Hen’s signature there were many titles and capital letters.
    So it was that the break came and the Society divided into the Jimmerson school and the Hen school, and thus did Popper escape the axe. To discipline him now, the Council saw, would give the appearance of acknowledging Hen’s authority and yielding to it.
    The bitter exchanges went on and on. Hen’s favorite weapon was the letter of ridicule. Mr. Jimmerson fought back with a barrage of pamphlets that kept the Latvian printers hopping. Then Hen stepped up the campaign, initiating the battle of the books, by having his people remove Mr. Jimmerson’s books from libraries and bookstores and destroy them. Popper countered with a program of defacement, ordering the Jimmerson men to fill in all the closed loops of letters in Hen’s books with green ink, to underline passages at random in that same green ink and to scrawl such comments in the margins as “Huh??!!” and “Is this guy serious?” and “I don’t get it!” in red ink, the aim being to break the reader’s concentration and so subvert the message. He also commissioned a drawing of a pop-eyed, moronic human face, that of a collegiate-looking fellow with spiky hair and big bow tie, and had rubber stamps made of it. The face had a strange power to annoy, even to sicken the spirit—one had to turn away from it—and Popper directed that it be stamped on every page of Hen’s books, in a different place on each page so that the reader could not prepare himself.

THE PRESS grew tired of Gnomons and moved on to other things. The public likewise lost interest, almost overnight. War was coming, the country was preparing for a mighty crusade and the Popper rallies suddenly had a shabby, dated air of selfishness about them. The crowds dwindled away to nothing. Popper had run out his string, or so it appeared.
    He went back to the Temple to think. Once the life of the luncheon table, he now took a