Exploits Page 17

  “And if I don't sign it?” I asked.

  “Then I will have to devise a series of coin tosses to determine which government gets to incarcerate you first. The choice is yours.”

  Well, it wasn't all that much of a choice that I could see, and I figured that if all my efforts to bring the word of the Lord to these brown and yellow heathen were that unappreciated, it was probably time for me to pull up stakes and take my leave of the place anyway, so I signed his paper and he flew me to Siberia, where I really could have used my pandaskin coat, and placed me on the train and pointed me to the West, and that was the end of my attempt to civilize the barbaric hordes of Asia.

  Which ain't to say that my preaching days were over. During the next few years I came to grips with some mighty interesting folks and critters in the glittering capitals of Europe, and made and lost a fortune or two, and discovered a lost continent, and fell hopelessly and eternally in love fifteen or twenty times, and even was king of my own country for a spell.

  But that is another story, and writing is mighty thirsty work.

  THE END