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Show Acting Alone Page 103 The books' incineration in this case would be far from pointless. Elder Cicerone could have his secretary type this little finishing touch into a whimsically conspicuous place in the official report to the council, perhaps solemnly announced as a sample quotation from the claims adjustor's inventory, or even nestled puffily in a paragraph all its own. Councillor Ezra would see it in the company of the other eleven councillors, would be amused in his private soul, and would be compelled to swallow his mirth until home alone among his wives. And, having no true kindred mind close at hand to share the joke with, the good councillor might conceivably call or write to the Elder, or otherwise break the uncomfortable silence that had mysteriously, ominously risen up between them of late. "I see you've stricken a blow for wholesomeness in literature, my good friend," he might say, with a smile in his rich old voice. The Elder now imagined those reputedly priceless books, installed with utmost care by trained experts in the most nearly perfect vacuums that modern technology could produce between panes of glass on the surface of this planet. All of this was imperiously caused to be done for the single, simple sake of one man's desire to offer personal tribute to another man. And, as he sat and watched his male secretary performing his secretarial duties without question, without suggestion nor annoying initiative, just as a properly indoctrinated, rehabilitated and retrained missionary should, the Elder consciously realized something for the first time. The realization was couched in a rememberance. It was a moment, one hot blazing noon long, long ago, the Elder standing with Councillor Ezra in his extensive apple orchard in the fruitlands north of Salt Lake City. |