question, that when it is proposed to establish a tax on matches—­an imperceptible duty which would enrich the Exchequer to a vast extent—­they will form a procession ten miles long to protest against the outrage, and threaten to batter down the Houses of Parliament.  Why?  Because there is no ethical purpose to be served by taxing matches, seeing that only a madman would give himself the guilty pleasure of either drinking or smoking them.  In short, these English reason after the fashion of paranoiacs—­logically, but from a wrong premise.  Not that I dislike their women. . . .”

The action of the quick-tempered Apostle can now be appraised in its full enormity.  A local tobacconist is a person in authority, a State official, and the nation safeguards the interests and the fair name of those who serve it faithfully.  When it is remembered that according to sect 43 of the 16th Section of their Penal Code any person speaking disrespectfully to, or of, a Government official renders himself liable to a term of cellular confinement not exceeding thirty-one years, ten lunar months and eighteen days, it may be imagined what penalties are applicable to the crime of actual personal violence towards such a sacrosanct individual—­a crime of which the Russian was unquestionably guilty.

Now this particular tobacconist, though tremulously sensitive, like all Southerners, on a point of honour, was as good-natured and forgiving as might be consistent with his rank of Government official.  He passed for a respectable married man with an eligible daughter and a taste for the quiet life; he did not want trouble.  The purchase of an additional pack of cigarettes, accompanied or unaccompanied by a frank apology, would have more than satisfied his sense of honour.

There the matter might have rested.  The second packet might have been bought and even the apology tendered, but for the ill-considered action of a young farmer who entered the shop at that moment to procure a couple of postcards.  This worthy lad was one of several dozen aspirants to the hand of the tobacconist’s daughter, whose dowry was reputed to be considerable.  He witnessed the insult and, desirous of standing well in the graces of a prospective father-in-law, dealt the offending alien so masterly a punch in the region of the solar plexus that he not only doubled up, but forgot to straighten himself out again.  Two or three lusty Apostles came to the rescue without delay.  They threw the youth down, stamped on his face, pounded his abdomen, pulled his hair out in handfuls, and otherwise treated him exactly as if the thing were happening in Russia.  This spectacle was too much for the tobacconist’s sense of honour.  With unwonted sprightliness he vaulted over the writhing cluster and summoned a municipal policeman.  The officer was on the spot in a twinkling, sword and trumpet in hand.  And there, in all conscience, the matter ought to have rested—­with the identification and bestowal in custody of the turbulent parties.