Hippy Buchan [antikvár]

HIPPY BUCHAN PROLOGUE This was the beginning of it. The Supreme Ironist sat on the uttermost peak of Destiny. Below him the Three Fates sat, and he watched their moving shuttles with amused intentness. At intervals he looked at the crystal ball he held in his hand, in which he could see reflected the happenings on earth. And at intervals, too, in his slow, veiled voice he would give an order and a new thread would be added to the shuttles. Then he would laugh very softly to himself and the Fates would have to work overtime while he watched results. And so one day the figure of Hippy Buchan drifted across this field of vision and the Supreme Ironist sat up and began to look interested. He was always particularly interested when anyone was unusually successful and happy, and Hippy Buchan was both. The Supreme Ironist looked thoughtfully into the crystal and a fine, thin smile ran curving round his lips and up into his eyes. "Altogether too coníident,-' was his comment. " We had better see into this." He sat for a long time without moving and considered. Ali the secrets of men's hearts were to him as an open book, and each corner of their minds. "The measure of a man's strength is the measure of his weakness," he said to himself. "What is it this man most holds to, and in what does he most supremely believe?"