CHAPTER XXVIII THE CHEATING OF HARRIS Below, Harris had just armed himself with a great iron bar; for he knew that the door was about to give under the attacks of the Germans.

A low order of sacrificers and soothsayers had enslaved men's understandings, and the numbers of these were increased by the country people, whom want and terror had driven into the city, from the fields which were lain uncultivated during a protracted war, and had suffered from the incursions of the enemy, and by the profitable cheating in the ignorance of others which they carried on like an allowed and customary trade.

"I really don't see what all this has to do with cheating at a séance.

If you recollect, sir, he had already proclaimed himself suspicious of Master Simmons's bona fides, and he now proceeded to deliver a violent verbal attack upon the young gentleman, asserting that it was impossible for him to have won the Scripture-knowledge prize without systematic cheating on an impressive scale.