The Masters of Atlantis Read Free Page A

himself with it.
    Thus boldly expressed and exposed to the blazing light of day, the thing could be seen clearly, and Lamar knew in his heart that it was true. He was Master of Gnomons and had been Master of Gnomons for perhaps as long as six weeks. He had not, however, suspected for one moment that Sydney might be a Master too, and this news took his breath away. What was more, Sydney said he believed himself to be a “Hierophant of Atlantis.” Lamar was puzzled by the claim, there being no such title or degree in Gnomonism, to the best of his knowledge.
    Over the next few days Sydney outlined an Alexandrian scheme whereby he and Lamar would take Gnomonism to the world. He, Sydney, would be responsible for Europe and Asia, and Lamar would establish the ancient order in the Americas, in accordance with Pletho-Robert’s plan. There was no time to lose. He all but pushed Lamar out of the house, saying he was terribly sorry but an unsecured personal loan was out of the question. He must make his way back home as best he could.
    Lamar, as a veteran in distress, was able to get a hardship loan from the American consul, upon surrender of his passport, just enough to pay steerage fare to New York in the sweltering hold of a Portuguese steamer. Fanny kissed him goodbye at the dock and so the rough accommodations bothered him hardly at all.

LAMAR WAS hardly noticed as he passed through New York with his Codex and continued on his journey home by rail. In Gary he picked up his old job as clerk in his uncle’s dry goods store. He took his meals and his baths at the YMCA down the street, and slept in the back of the store. Here, in the shadowy storage room, with the drop light and the cardboard boxes, he established Pillar No. 1 of the Gnomon Society, North America.
    He was unable to recruit his uncle, who said he didn’t have time to read a lot of stuff like that, much less memorize it. Nor did Lamar have any luck with his old school chums. His first success came with a traveling salesman named Bates, who set up Pillar No. 2 in Chicago. Bates was followed by Mapes, and Pillar No. 3, in Valparaiso, Indiana. Mapes was a football coach, ready to try anything. He hoped that Gnomonic thought might show him the way to put some life into his timorous and lethargic team. Mapes was followed by—nobody, for quite a long time. Three Pillars then, and three members, all told, and that was what Lamar had to show for almost two years of work.
    By this time he had made a typewritten copy of the Codex. The string-bound manuscript version was getting dog-eared and did not make a good impression. The typewritten copy did not make a much better impression but it was easier to read. Lamar could see that many men did not accept this as a real book either, judging from their hard faces as they flipped through it, pausing over the triangles and recoiling, and then giving it back to him.
    What was needed was a properly printed book. Bates told him about a Latvian newspaper in Chicago, where, in the back shop, English could be set in type and printed without anyone there understanding a word of it. Lamar went there and ordered fifty copies of the book and asked the Letts not to break the plates but to keep them readily available for reorders. The books had blue paper covers and were bound with staples.
    Some years were to pass before the first printing was exhausted. The 1920s were later to be celebrated as a joyous decade but to Lamar it was a time of the grossest materialism and of hollow and nasty skepticism. No one had time to listen. Fanny Hen’s letters kept him going. Her monthly letter, lightly scented, was the one bright spot in his gloomy round. She was now in London with Sydney, or Sir Sydney, he having become the fourth baronet on the death of his father, Sir Billy Hen, the sportsman. Sydney was disappointed in his patrimony, which amounted to little more than a pile of Sir Billy’s gambling debts, but he had pushed