“Clio, Clio,” said Euterpe quickly, “can’t you see that Erato is ill? Please go on quickly, and let Calliope tell her story. When that is finished, Erato will be all right again. She has been worrying herself.”
It was not often that Euterpe said so much, and so authoritatively. Her eyes were bright: almost there were tears in them.
“I should be glad to recite to you,” said Calliope, “a poem in thirty-five cantos, with two thousand stanzas to the canto, heroic metre, classical subject——”
“Swivel-action and no escapement,” Thalia went on, under her breath.
“I am afraid,” said Clio, “that we shall not have time for all that, much as we should like to.”
“Oh, quite so,” added Terpsichore, a little maliciously.
“If you would read us the synopsis now,” suggested Clio.
“Or the index,” said Thalia.
“Or even the advertisements at the end,” Terpsichore proposed.
“I will read you no poem whatever,” said Calliope severely. “You are not—not yet ripe for it.”