"I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop
Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky. He tells me that our
father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I did not say
anything about his being my own father. I only inquired about a Mr.
Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a supernatural being. The
Bishop said it was, "Oh, so very dreadful," and he felt it all the more
keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the means of my father's
going to Erewhon, by giving him the information that enabled him to find
the pass over the range that bounded the country.
"I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a letter,
which it now seems I could not do. This third letter I have given him
with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his new Cathedral, to be
paid as soon as I get an answer from you.
"We are all well at Sunch'ston; so are my wife and eight children--five
sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and sevens. St.
Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse. Dr. Downie has become very
lethargic. I can do less against St. Hankyism than when I was a private
man. A little indiscretion on my part would plunge the country in civil
war. Our engineers and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for
endowments, and steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is
baked from one end of the country to the other.
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