“Why, that's the question. The Mayor has his virtues, but he doesn't like insurrections or paying bills. If Providence didn't afflict him with one or the other of those now and then, he might be a philosopher; but now you speak of it, I shouldn't say he was a good loser. It's one of the characteristics of the tropics, to carry grudges long and far.”
Susannah was looking at me gravely.
“Do you make poetry?” she asked.
“Not in the way of business,” I said, still thinking of my troubles. “It's Portate that introduces poetry into business. If I propose to the Mayor to put in five hundred new lights, he proposes a procession. If I tell him I'm going to repaint some of the trolley cars, he announces it that night to the populace from the balcony of magistrates, and the populace comes and asks me for a free ride, and The Union Electric's employés claim it's a holiday. You see, Miss Romney——”
“Why, I'm Susannah?”
“Oh! Well, Susannah—You see, Susannah, Portate furnishes all the poetry The Union Electric Company will stand. They can't afford to let me decorate the situation too. That's why I have some doubts about the ultimatum and the insurrection. They were rather decorative, weren't they?”
“I'm going to make poetry about you,” said Susannah.
She got up and walked away across the deck, in the manner of one conducting powerful operations with the muses. She came to where the dingy heap of eastern wisdom sat against the cabin wall.
“Ram Nad!” we heard her say, with a stamp of the foot, “you go this minute and get your shawl!”
He rose silently, pale and venerable, and went down the companionway.