It's part of the truth, too, that there are scoundrels in the
world who will take advantage of anybody's simple trust to fill
their pockets. But that's not all," he went on, shaking his head,
"no, that's not all. It's part of the truth that there is a mystery,
and that human beings will go on searching whatever all the
materialists and merchants in the world can try to do to stop them.
I remember years ago an old man, a little off his dot, telling my
father that he, the old man, was a treasure hunter. He told my
father that the world was divided into two halves, the treasure
hunters and the Town Councillors, and that the two halves would
never join and never even meet. My father, who was a practical man,
said that the old idiot should be shut up in an asylum, and
eventually I believe he was. 'We'll have him going off one day,' my
father said, 'in a cargo boat with a map in his pocket, looking for
gold pieces.' But it wasn't gold pieces he was after."
To Maggie it was always irritating the way that Mr. Magnus would
wander away from the subject. She brought him back now with a jerk.
"No, but what do you think is going to happen?" she asked him.
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