“SARCOPHAGUSTUS”
“Well,” explained Billy Jones, “Sarcophagus occupied the same relation to the Egyptians that Augustus did to the Romans—in fact, the irreverent used to call him Sarcophagustus, instead of Sarcophagus, which was his real name. This poem of Haarley’s is manifestly addressed to him.”
“Did he have nickel-plated eyebrows?” asked Bedfork Parke, satirically.
“No,” said Billy Jones. “As I remember the story of Sarcophagus as I read of him in college, he was a very pallid sort of a potentate—his forehead was white as marble. So they called him the Argent-browed Sarcophagus.”
“It’s a good thing for us we have Billy Jones with us to tell us all these things,” whispered Tom Snobbe to his brother Dick.
“You bet your life,” said Dick. “There’s nothing, after all, like a classical education. I wish I’d known it while I was getting mine.”
“What’s ‘fell misogyny’?” asked Tenafly Paterson, who seemed to be somewhat enamoured of the phrase. “Didn’t old Sarcophagus care for chemistry?”
“Chemistry?” demanded the chairman.