232 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

only refrigerating plant, in fighting president after
president in the cause of reform. "But no," Mr.
Nelson said, turning his yellow malicious eyes over
the pointed leaking huts, "we don't like Faulkner."
After a while he found enough vitality to explain,
"You see, he has an idea."

"What idea?" I said.

"Nobody knows," Mr. Nelson said, "but we don't
like it."

A young man came out of the forest in the evening
light followed by a boy with a gun. He was a native,
with a round sad gentle face, dressed in plus-fours
with bright little tassels below the knee and the same
rough-rider hat as Mr. Nelson wore. He introduced
himself: he was Victor Prosser, a Bassa man, school-
master of Toweh-Ta. He had been on a visit to the
Catholic priest at Sanoquelleh, two days' march away,
to make his confession and fetch back to school his
youngest pupil. He was a devout young man who
had been educated by the Catholic fathers on the
Coast, and was now established as the head of a little
mission school. When he heard that I was a Catholic
too, he was overjoyed. He sat there beside Mr.
Nelson, repeating over and over again in a soft
hesitating English I had to bend my head to catch,
"Thaf s very good. That's good. Very good. That
is good." Mr. Nelson eyed him sourly and cynically
and left us.

Victor Prosser said that he would call his youngest
pupil to read me the Catechism, and gave an order
to the boy with the gun. He didn't ask whether I
would like to hear the child; he assumed that any
Catholic would be pleased to hear the Catechism