The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

HALF-HOURS WITH FAMOUS MAHATMAS came. He urged me to speak; so I spoke. He then revealed his divine self in an exceptionally able manner; I refrained from revealing mine. His divine self reminded one rather of a ‘Navvy’s Saturday Night, by Battersea Burns.’” He further urged me to go and see the Mahatma himself on the following Sunday; and this I did. I arrived at 60, South Audley Street at seven o’clock. There were already about twenty sheepish-looking tigers present, and when the Mahatma entered the room, I sat down next to him; for, knowing, in case a scrimmage should occur, that a Hindoo cannot stomach a blow in the spleen, I thought it wisest to be within striking distance of him. The Mahatma opened the evening’s discussion by saying: “Humph ... I am Agnostic, you are believers. I say ‘I don’t know,’ you contradict me.” And during the next hour and a half more Bunkum was talked in that room than I should say in Exeter Hall during the whole course of the last century. At last it ended, and though I had made various attempts to draw His Holiness into argument, I had as yet failed to unveil his divinity. He now started dictating his precious philosophy, and in such execrable English, that it was quite impossible to follow him, and I once or twice asked him to repeat what he had said, and as I did so I noticed that several of the faithful shivered and turned pale. At length came the word “ expecta- tion” or “separation,” and as I could not catch which, I ex- claimed “what?” “You pig-faced man!” shouted His Holiness, “you dirty fellow, you come here to take away my disciples . . . vat you vant vith this: vat! vat! vat! vat! ... You do no exercise, else you understand vat I say, dirty man!” And then turning to 289