“I say, colonel! wasn’t that a jolly old he-fight we had last night?”
My reply was a laugh, and a glance of admiration at the gay boy.
I declined the invitation of General Davenant, as I had to return. My horse was brought, and I found his foot much easier. In half an hour I was on the road to Petersburg.
XXV. — THE BLUE SERPENT.
Once back at the “Cedars,” I reflected deeply upon the history which I had heard from the lips of General Davenant.
I shall refrain, however, from recording these reflections. If the reader will cast his eyes back over the pages of these memoirs, he will perceive that I have confined myself generally to the simple narration of events—seldom pausing to offer my own comments upon the scenes passing before me. Were I to do so, what an enormous volume I should write, and how the reader would be bored! Now, to bore a reader, is, in my eyes, one of the greatest crimes of which an author can be guilty. It is the unpardonable sin, indeed, in a writer. For which reason, and acting upon the theory that a drama ought to explain itself and be its own commentator, I spare the worthy reader of these pages all those reflections which I indulged in, after hearing General Davenant’s singular narrative.
“Pride! pride!” I muttered, rising at the end of an hour. “I think I can understand that—exceptional as is this instance; but I wish I had heard who was the ‘real murderer’ of George Conway!”
Having thus dismissed the subject, I set about drawing up my official report, and this charmingly common-place employment soon banished from my mind every more inviting subject!