EY GAZED FASCINATED

THE ROOM FILLED WITH LUMINOUS, STRIPED FIGURES

CHAPTER I

HOW THEY FIRST HEARD OF ATLANTIS

Rain is responsible for a great deal more than the mere growth of
vegetables--it is a controller, if a somewhat capricious controller,
of man's destiny. It was mainly, if not entirely, owing to rain that
the French lost the Battle of Agincourt; whilst, if I mistake not,
Confucius alone knows how many victories have been snatched from the
Chinese by the same factor.

It was most certainly rain that drove Leon Hamar to take refuge in a
second-hand bookshop; for so deep-rooted was his aversion to any
literature saving a financial gazette or the stock and shares column
of a daily, that nothing would have induced him to get within touching
distance of a book save the risk of a severe wetting. Now, to his
unutterable disgust, he found himself surrounded by the things he
loathed. Books ancient--very ancient, judging by their bindings--and
modern--histories, biographies, novels and magazines--anything from
ten dollars to five cents, and all arrayed with most laudable tact
according to their bulk and condition. But Hamar was neither to be
tempted nor mollified. He frowned at one and all alike, and the
colossal edition of Miss Somebody or Other's poems--that by reason of
its magnificent cover of crimson and gold occupied a most prominent
position--met with the same vindictive reception as the tattered and
torn volumes of Whittier stowed away in an obscure corner.

Backing still further into the entrance of the store for a better
protection from the rain, which, now falling heavier and heavier, was
blown in by the wind, Hamar collided with a stand of books, with the
result that one of them fell with a loud bang on the pavement.

A man, evidently the owner of the store, and unmistakably a Jew,
instantly appeared. Picking up the book, and wiping it with a dirty
handkerchief, he thrust it at Hamar.

"See!" he said, "you have damaged this property of mine. You must
either buy it or give me adequate compensation."

"What!" Hamar cried, "compensation for such rubbish as that? Why all
your books together are not worth five dollars. Indeed I've seen twice
as many sold at a sale for half that amount. You can't Jew me!"

The two men eyed each other quizzically.

"Perhaps," the owner of the store observed slowly, "perhaps some of
your ancestors were once Yiddish. In which case there ought to be a
bond of