But Mr. Comstock knew not only the name of that book, but
also its contents. And he with his own eyes had seen other
things most strange and unspeakable of which it is best to
say nothing. He had to know. Duty commanded it. But
was not that a lucky break for Anthony Comstock that al-
most alone out of all the world he could have his cake and
suppress it, too?

But this man was no hypocrite, if hypocrisy is limited to
the activities of the conscious mind. Nor is there any readi-
ness here to throw the old crusader to the Freudian lions.
In some obscure essay the story is told that Anthony Com-
stock carried in his pocket a wooden snake which he pro-
duced upon occasion to frighten a girl whom he used to visit.
The present investigators were not able to locate it. "But
you must," insisted an analyst called into consultation.
"Don't you see how vitally this sets the pattern for the man's
whole life?"

Let it pass and not be set down among the things known
of Mr. Comstock, as recorded by himself and others. It is
true that he was passionately devoted to his mother and to
her memory, that as a lad he trapped animals and shot robins,
that he collected postage stamps down to the day of his
death, that he was skillful at fine cabinet work, and that he
loved the graceful curved lines of Japanese vases and filled
his house with these trinkets. And possibly it is not irrele-
vant to say that Mr. Comstock married the daughter of a
Presbyterian elder and that she was ten years older than her
husband. Dim she must have been, for one friend who knew
her well could remember no more than that she was in-
veterate in her silence and always dressed in black. Another
man who often saw her kept as his only recollection the fact
that she weighed eighty-two pounds.

But before any attempt is made, if indeed it ever is, to
chart the secret places in the heart of Comstock and explain

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