Precipitate start of the Wild Ass hunters.
CHAPTER THE NINTH
The Hunting of the Wild Asses of the Devil
§ 1
At this point the surviving manuscript comes to an abrupt end.
But Boon read or extemporized far beyond this point.
He made a figure that was at once absurd and pitiful of his little Author making this raid upon the world, resolved to detect and exorcise these suspected Wild Asses, and he told us at great length of how steadily and inevitably the poor enthusiast entangled himself in feuds and false accusations, libels and denunciations, free fights, burglaries, and so to universal execration in a perpetually tightening coil. “I’ll stick to it,” he squeaks, with every fresh blow of Fate. Behind him, with a developing incurable bronchitis that could never be fatal, toiled the devil, more and more despondent, more and more draggle-tailed, voiceless and unhelpful.
After a time he was perpetually trying to give his Author the slip.
But continually it is clearer that there were diabolical Wild Asses loose and active in the affairs of the world….
One day the Author had an inspiration. “Was your lot the only lot that ever escaped?”