“Well,” replied Cupid, with some assumption of importance, “I was there last June week on business, and I bagged three hundred and forty-two brace. That looks rather different, I fancy. Every man that I hit is engaged. They write long letters to Her. They keep faded flowers which She wore. They are beginning to drop all their bachelor friends. One of them has made a kind of little shrine on his mantelpiece, in which he keeps one tiny white satin slipper that She wore, and also a large photograph of Her. Unfortunately the virus—I mean the sweet influence—is not always permanent. Only too often the June week of one year undoes the work of the previous June. I feel sure they would like to hear the story about the Sicilian shepherd, and how he got to the cave, and found——”
“Hush!” said Erato quickly, “that’s the most dangerous part of all. We’ll see about it though. Clio,” she added, raising her voice, “Cupid tells me that you must be a little mistaken about those young students; he says that——”
“I am sorry to have to interrupt you,” remarked Clio, “but I have asked Melpomene to tell us a soul-moving story, and she is going to commence.”
“I am not going to listen to that bloodthirsty hag,” whispered Cupid to Erato. He kissed her and passed out of the room. Erato was busy with the curious little silver brazier, from which the smoke began to ascend more quickly.
Melpomene took a draught of her blood-and-seltzer, and began in a deep and husky voice:—
A watchman stood on a lonely tower, looking eastward, and whistling “Wait till the clouds roll by,” shredding it in as a remedy against impatience. And that watchman was nothing if he was not classical.
He pondered upon the history of the house. For the master was away from home, having gone to a lonely place not marked on the maps, in order to make atonement for his crime. Ten years before he had eaten a veal-and-ham pie, in which, owing to the inadvertence of the cook, his eldest daughter had taken the place of the veal-and-ham. And the cook’s carelessness had been entirely due to absence of mind: he was distraught because his son had just murdered his aunt, and the son had murdered the aunt because his mind was unhinged owing to a sudden depreciation in nitrates, which he had bought largely. And the gods had caused the nitrates to depreciate because one of the directors hadn’t sacrificed anything except one thigh slice, rather fat, for the last two years. And the director hadn’t sacrificed anything else, because he got his butcher’s meat under contract and the butcher had bilked him. And the butcher had been compelled to bilk him, because the gods had sent a murrain on all the cattle in the world, to punish one pig that they had a spite against. This was not quite the ordinary curse, descending from father to son with the silver spoons and the mortgages. It went zigzag, like a snipe. Many people had taken snap-shots at it with sacrifices, but they hadn’t been able to stop it. Nobody knew where that curse was going to next; so a general interest in it prevailed. Teiresias had taken a long prayer at it, just as it was hopping from the director to the cook’s family, and missed badly. And now the master of the watchman’s house—by name Eustinkides—had fired a ten-years’ penance at it. Some thought he’d hit it; others said it was lying low, and would get up again in a minute.
This distressed the watchman. He felt uneasy. It was one of those frisky curses, with an everlasting ricochet about it, going on like sempiternal billiards with a bad cushion. He did not think it probable, of course, that it would hit him. He was in such a very humble position in life. But still he would have felt more comfortable if he could have seen that curse getting to work somewhere else. It was not a pleasant thing to have hanging about the house. In the meantime he awaited the coming of Eustinkides. The master had ordered that at the moment when he appeared in sight the hot water should be turned into the bath. For, during the ten years’ penance in the place not recognised by the Atlas, he had carefully abstained from all manner of washing, and had not so much as breathed the name of soap. Suddenly the watchman removed his eye from the telescope, and cried: “Listen, ye that are within the house. For on the road is a curious geological formation that walks, and a staff is stuck in a projecting portion of one of its upper strata.” When it came nearer, and within hearing, the watchman called out to it:
“What ho! old alluvial deposit. How’s your ammonites?”