"Willy," he said, "you know old Mrs. Dalton?"
"Sure. What about her?"
"She wants to close out her account and give everything away."
"I suppose that's her privilege. But why?"
"I think you'd better talk to her."
"Oh, lord! She'll talk my ear off," I said. "But I suppose I'd better."
McGill brought Mrs. Dalton into my office. She was one of a number of rich oldsters who had custodian accounts with us. We kept them in sound high-yield stocks and tax-free municipals, clipped their coupons, looked over their accounts a couple of times a year to see if some trading was indicated, and sent the owners their monthly checks.
I pulled out a chair for her. "Well, Mrs. Dalton," I said, "I hear you're leaving us."
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, not really leaving you, Mr. Newbury. Not in spirit, that is. But I've found a better use for that material stuff you call money than just sitting there in the bank."
"Yes?" I said, hoisting an eyebrow. "Tell me, please. We try to protect your interests."
"The money will be given to the Master to carry forward his great work."
"The Master?"
"You know. Surely you've heard of the wonderful work Mr. Bergius is doing?"
"Oh. I've heard something, but tell me more about it."
"The Master's organization is called Hagnophilia, meaning 'love of purity.' You see, he's the earthly representative of the Interstellar Ruling Council. They chose him for his purity and vision and took him up in a flying saucer to the planet Zikkarf, where the Council meets. After they'd tested him, they decided he was worthy of becoming an associate member. By helping his great work, we can assure his promotion to full membership. That means that the earth will have a voice in interstellar affairs."
"Indeed. And what do you get out of this, Mrs. Dalton?"
"Oh, his teachings will enable us to retain our full health and vigor until the time comes for us to pass. When that time comes, we'll pass directly into our next bodies without this messy business of dying. And, he says, we'll retain the full memory of our previous life, so we can take advantage of the lessons we've learned. The way things are nowadays, we forget our previous existences, so the lessons we learned in them have to be learned all over again."
"Very interesting. How has Mr. Bergius' scheme worked?"
"It hasn't been in operation long enough to tell, really. But when old Mr. White passed, it was with such a peaceful smile on his face, that showed that he had gone directly to his next incarnation, just as the Master promised."
"Well, Mrs. Dalton, your Master has made some pretty big claims. Hadn't you better wait a while, to see how they pan out? He wouldn't be the first to arouse large expectations and fail to fulfill them."
Her mouth became firm. "No, Mr. Newbury, I have decided what I want to do, and that I shall do. Will you please make out the papers?"
Later, Mrs. Dalton went out of the bank with a large cardboard envelope, containing all her securities and a check for the cash balance, under her arm. Her chauffeur helped her into her car, and off they went. McGill, glumly watching, asked me:
"What's this all about, Willy?"
I told him. He said: "Hagnophilia sounds like a blood disease. What does it mean: 'love of hags'?"
"No; 'love of purity.' Greek."
During the next month, two more of our custodian accounts were terminated likewise. My boss Esau Drexel called me into his presidential office to ask me about it.
"It would take more than the loss of a few custodian accounts to rock us, even though we're a small bank," he said, "but it sets a bad precedent. When these people are broke, we'll be blamed for letting them blow their wads on this mountebank."
"True," I said, "but the world is full of suckers. Always has been. Short of starting a rival cult, I don't see what we can do."
"Might start one to Plutus, the god of wealth," said Drexel. "Damn it, the only way to get anything done nowadays is to start some goddam cult. Did I tell you, my grandson had dropped out of college to join one?"
"No. What's this? I'm sorry."
"Some guy named the Reverend Sung—Chinese or something—has what he calls Scientific Sorcery, and he filled poor George's head with his nonsense. He's convinced the kid that his family are all possessed by evil spirits, so George won't have anything to do with us. If half of what George says is true, they can do things to curl your hair."
"Can't you get the law on this Reverend Sung?"
"No. We tried, but he's protected by the First Amendment. My lawyer says, if we tried force on George, we'd end up in jail for kidnapping."
Then old John Sturdevant decided to close out his account and give the funds to the Master. His account, however, was an irrevocable trust, which we could not have released even if we had wished.
Sturdevant was a nasty old man. Of few can it be truthfully said that they snarl their words, but Sturdevant snarled his.
"Young man," he said (I was just past fifty), "I've lived long enough to know a good thing when I see it. You're standing in the way of progress and enlightenment, damn it. You're condemning me to a lingering, painful death from something or other. I've got sixteen things the matter with me now, and with the Master's help I could grow a new set of teeth, get my prostate back to normal size, and everything. Then I could pass, zip, into my next body without a hitch. Besides, with this money the Master could end war, control the population explosion, and distribute the world's wealth equitably. You're a butcher, a sadist, a Hitler. Good-day, sir!"
He stamped out, banging his walking stick with each step.
The next dust-up occurred when Bascom Goetz wanted to withdraw all the money from the trust fund of his twelve-year-old nephew and ward, to enroll the boy in one of Bergius's educational institutes. These far-out schools promised to turn their pupils into superbeings who could do everything short of walking on water. The trust allowed the spending of principal for the boy's education and necessities, but we did not consider the Master's schools as coming under either head. Since Goetz had to have our consent for this withdrawal, we had a thundering row with Goetz. He stamped off to consult his lawyer.
My next contact with Hagnophilia occurred when our freshman son Stephen brought home a friend for a week end. The friend, Chet Carpenter, wore blue jeans and had hair hanging halfway down his back—a male coiffure that has always made me wince.
During dinner, Carpenter said he planned to drop out of college and devote his life to Hagnophilia. With a little prodding, he launched into a harangue about the sect:
"You see, Mr. Newbury, it's all a matter of bringing your purusha up to full acromatics. Your purusha is the immaterial nexus of energy-processing between the seven planes of existence. It manifests for billions of years, until its psychionic charge is exhausted. The Interstellar Council is working on a project for recharging exhausted purushas, so we won't just terminate after a mere trillion years or so.
"Well, you see, as one envelope unwinds, the purusha hovers in interspace until another issues for it to inform. But that time of hovering is out of the seven-dimensional time stream, so the memory of previous informings is laniated.
"You see, as the human population has ramped, there's gotten to be more envelopes than purushas to inform them. So the purushas of lower organisms—apes, tigers, even centipedes—have filled the vacancies. That's why so many humans act so beastly. Their purushas haven't fruited in accordance with the akashic plan but have shunted the intermediate rungs. So, you see, they're not yet qualified for human somatism.