“‘Oh, I dunno; I don’t care so very much about it.’”

“’Well, I’ll read you one verse of the “Lines to Hannah.”  He says—­to Hannah, mind you—­

  “The little birds sing sweetly
    In the weeping willows green,
  The village girls dress neatly—­
    Oh, tell me, do I dream?”

Now, you see, Grady, that is what is unseating my mind.  A man can’t stand more than a certain amount of that kind of thing.  What do the public care whether he is dreaming or whether he is drunk?  What does Hannah care?  Why, they don’t care a cent.  Now, do they?

“‘Not a red cent.’

“’Of course not.  And yet Markley sends me another poem, entitled “Despondency,” in which he exclaims,

  “Oh, bury me deep in the ocean blue,
    Where the roaring billows laugh;
  Oh, cast me away on the weltering sea,
    Where the dolphins will bite me in half.”

Now, Mr. Grady, if you can find a competent assassin, I wouldn’t make it a point with him to oblige Mr. Markley.  I don’t care particularly to have the poet buried in the weltering sea.  If he can’t find a roaring billow, I’ll be perfectly satisfied to have him chucked into a creek.  And I dare say that it’ll make no material difference whether the dolphins gobble him or the catfish and eels nibble him up.  It’s all the same in the long run.  Mention this to your murderer when you speak to him, will you?  Now, I’ll show you why this thing takes all the heart out of me.  In his poem entitled “Longings” he uses this language: 

  “Oh, sing to me, darling, a sweet song to-night,
    While I bask in the smile of thine eyes,
  While I kiss those dear lips in the dark silent room,
    And whisper my saddening good-byes.”

Now, you see how it is yourself, Grady, don’t you?  How is she going to sing to him while he kisses those lips, and how is he going to whisper good-bye?  Isn’t that awful slush?  Now, isn’t it?  And then, if the room is dark, what I want to know is how he’s going to tell whether her eyes are smiling or not?  Mr. Grady, either the man is insane or I am; and if your butcher is going to stab Markley, you’ll oblige me by telling him that I want him to jab him deep, and maybe fill him up with poison or something to make it absolutely certain.

“’I know that when he sent me that poem about “The Unknown” I parsed it, and examined it with a microscope, and sent it around to a chemist’s to be analyzed, but hang me if I know yet what he’s driving at when he says,

  “The uffish spectral gleaming of that wild resounding clang
  Came hooting o’er the margin of the dusky moors that hang
  Like palls of inky darkness where the hoarse, weird raven calls,
  And the bhang-drunk Hindoo staggers on and on until he falls.”

Isn’t that—­Well, now, isn’t that just the most fearful mess of stuff that was ever ground out of a lunatic asylum?’

“‘It’s the awfullest I ever saw.’