“I hope so,” I said. “You know
where I work.”
“Yes—yes. I’ll come.
We’ve all sorts of things more to say, haven’t
we? We—good-by!”
Did I hear, as I gained the street, something being
said about the General, and the state of his health?
You may imagine in what state of wondering I went
out of that place, and how little I could now do away
with my curiosity. By the droll looks and head-turnings
which followed me from strangers that passed me by
in the street, I was made aware that I must be talking
aloud to myself, and the words which I had evidently
uttered were these: “But who in the world
can he have smashed up?”
Of course, beneath the public stare and smile I kept
the rest of my thoughts to myself; yet they so possessed
and took me from my surroundings, that presently,
while crossing Royal Street, I was nearly run down
by an electric car. Nor did even this serve to
disperse my preoccupation; my walk back to Court and
Chancel streets is as if it had not been; I can remember
nothing about it, and the first account that I took
of external objects was to find myself sitting in my
accustomed chair in the Library, with the accustomed
row of books about the battle of Cowpens waiting on
the table in front of me. How long we had thus
been facing each other, the books and I, I’ve
not a notion. And with such mysterious machinery
are we human beings filled—machinery that
is in motion all the while, whether we are aware of
it or not—that now, with some part of my
mind, and with my pencil assisting, I composed several
stanzas to my kingly ancestor, the goal of my fruitless
search; and yet during the whole process of my metrical
exercise I was really thinking and wondering about
John Mayrant, his battles and his loves.
Odeon intimations of royalty
I
sing to thee, thou Great Unknown,
Who
canst connect me with a throne
Through
uncle, cousin, aunt, or sister,
But
not, I trust, through bar sinister.
Chorus:
Gules!
Gules! and a cuckoo peccant!
Such was the frivolous opening of my poem, which,
as it progressed, grew even less edifying; I have
quoted this fragment merely to show you how little
reverence for the Selected Salic Scions was by this
time left in my spirit, and not because the verses
themselves are in the least meritorious; they should
serve as a model for no serious-minded singer, and
they afford a striking instance of that volatile mood,
not to say that inclination to ribaldry, which will
at seasons crop out in me, do what I will. It
is my hope that age may help me to subdue this, although
I have observed it in some very old men.
