“Right oh,” he said, “but let me read it through first.”
This was the education of David, and Frank was tremendously anxious to construe the beautiful passage well, and he took some five minutes more going over it, while David’s glance fed on the list of the twenty-two promotions. Then he began.
“Stranger,” he said. “Blast it; that won’t do: it sounds American.”
“Guest?” suggested David.
“Yes; that’s better. ‘O guest in this land of horsemen, thou hast come to the most fair of earth’s homes, to gleaming Kolonos, frequented by the nightingale that bubbles liquidly in the shelter of green glades, making his habitation amid the wine-dark ivy, and the untrodden bowers of the god, myriad-berried, unseen of the sun, where Dionysus, master of revels, ever treads, companied by the nymphs that nursed him.’ ”
“O-o-oh!” said David, pushing back his yellow hair, and still rather shy of liking this.
“ ‘And, fed with heavenly dew, the sweet clusters of the narcissus are flowering morn by morn, the immemorial crown of the great goddesses, and the golden-beamed crocus is a-blossom. Nor dwindle ever the sleepless springs whence come the wandering waters of the Kephissus, but every day he flows in stainless tides over the plains of earth’s ripening bosom, giving speedy increase, nor have the choirs of Muses abhorred the spot, nor golden-reined Aphrodite.’ ”
Maddox paused.
“That’s your twenty-five lines,” he said.
“Oh, ripping,” said David. “It really is. Absolute A1. Do go on.”