That voice was his. When had he used it for his fellow-man?
CHAPTER VIII
A SAVAGE SPUR
John Murray, anax of publishers, sat that evening in his shop in Fleet Street. He was in excellent humor, having dined both wisely and well. His hair was sparse above a smooth-shaven, oval face, in which lurked good-humor and the wit which brought to his drawing-room the most brilliant men of literary London, as his genius as a publisher had given him the patronage of the greatest peers of the kingdom, and even of the prince regent. His black coat was of the plainest broadcloth and his neck-cloth of the finest linen. Dallas sat opposite, his scholarly face keen and animated. The frayed waistcoat was no longer in evidence, and the worn hat had given place to a new broad brim.
“Yes,” said the man of books, “we shall formally publish to-morrow. I wrote his lordship, asking him to come up to town, to urge him to eliminate several of the stanzas in case we reprint soon. They will only make him more enemies. He has enough now,” he added ruefully.
“You still think as well of it?”
The publisher pushed back his glasses with enthusiasm. “It is splendid—unique.” He pulled out a desk-drawer and took therefrom a printed volume, poising it proudly, as a father dandles his first-born, and, turning its pages, with lifted forefinger and rolling voice read:
“Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,
And long accustomed bondage uncreate?