And Ali said: "Have I not here the stopper and on it, as good men
know, the ineffable seal? Now I have learned in Persia how that your
trains that make the haste, and hurry men to and fro, and your
factories and the digging of your pits and all the things that are
evil are everyone of them caused and brought about by steam."
"Is it not so?" said Shooshan.
"It is even so," said Shep.
"Now it is clear," said Ali, "that the chief devil that vexes England
and has done all this harm, who herds men into cities and will not let
them rest, is even the devil Steam."
Then the great ones would have rebuked him but one said: "No, let us
hear him, perhaps his patent may improve on steam."
And to them hearkening Ali went on thus: "O Lords of this place, let
there be made a bottle of strong steel, for I have no bottle with my
stopper, and this being done let all the factories, trains, digging of
pits, and all evil things soever that may be done by steam be stopped
for seven days, and the men that tend them shall go free, but the
steel bottle for my stopper I will leave open in a likely place. Now
that chief devil, Steam, finding no factories to enter into, nor no
trains, sirens nor pits prepared for him, and being curious and
accustomed to steel pots, will verily enter one night into the bottle
that you shall make for my stopper, and I shall spring forth from my
hiding with my stopper and fasten him down with the ineffable seal
which is the seal of King Solomon and deliver him up to you that you
cast him into the sea."
And the great ones answered Ali and they said: "But what should we
gain if we lose our prosperity and be no longer rich?"
And Ali said: "When we have cast this devil into the sea there will
come back again the woods and ferns and all the beautiful things that
the world hath, the little leaping hares shall be seen at play, there
shall be music on the hills again, and at twilight ease and quiet and
after the twilight stars."