"I have great sympathy with you," I answered, "I have been at the ballade of Val-ès-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yet completed it."
"Well, then," he said, "you will be patient with me when I tell you that I have but three verses completed." Whereupon without further invitation he sang in a loud and clear voice the following verse:
It's ten years ago to-day you turned me out of doors
To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores.
And I thought about the all in all …
"The 'all in all,'" I said, "is weak."
He was immensely pleased with this, and, standing up, seized me by the hand. "I know you now," he said, "for a man who does indeed write verse. I have done everything I could with those three syllables, and by the grace of Heaven I shall get them right in time. Anyhow, they are the stop-gap of the moment, and with your leave I shall reserve them, for I do not wish to put words like 'tumty tum' into the middle of my verse."
I bowed to him, and he proceeded:
And I thought about the all in all, and more than I could tell;
But I caught a horse to ride upon and rode him very well.
He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side—
And I ride; and I ride!
"Of how many verses do you intend this metrical composition to be?" said I, with great interest.
"I have sketched out thirteen," said he firmly, "but I confess that the next ten are so embryonic in this year 1907 that I cannot sing them in public." He hesitated a moment, then added: "They have many fine single lines, but there is as yet no composition or unity about them." And as he recited the words "composition" and "unity" he waved his hand about like a man sketching a cartoon.
"Give me, then," said I, "at any rate the last two." For I had rapidly calculated how many would remain of his scheme.