"Now, that was your soul speaking!" said Miss Emmeline, warmly. Instantly The Author wrinkled his nose, bristled his mustache, and looked like a hyena. Miss Martha Hopkins, worshipfully observant of the great man, caught his eye at that moment and thought he was scowling at her. She looked so stricken that The Author presently strolled over and sat down beside her, to her fluttering delight. But discovering that she was wholly unacquainted with the original verse of J. Gordon Coogler of Columbia, he first bitterly reproached her for neglecting home-made talent, and then proceeded to make sure that she would remember the Bard of the Congaree so long as she lived.
"Not know Coogler!" cried The Author, shrilly; "ignorant of the bard raised, so to speak, around your own door-step? Horrible! Listen to this!" said he, accusingly:
"Fair lady, on that snowy neck and half-clad bosom
Which you so publicly reveal to man,
There's not a single outward stain or speck.
Would that you had given but half the care
To the training of your intellect and heart,
As you have given to that spotless neck!"
"Gracious Heavens!" gasped Miss Martha, who showed a modest salt-cellar in the mildest of Vs.
"Is it possible you don't like him?" demanded The Author, amazedly. "But, my dear woman! Coogler's—why, Coogler's ginger-pop to a thirsty world!"
"I—I don't drink ginger-pop!" confessed the be-deviled Center of Culture, foggily.
"Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer,
She never was much given to literature,"
quoted The Author, pensively.
She was speechless. The shameless Author, fixing upon her a last long, lingering look of sorrowful reproach, said with emotion:
"From early youth to the frost of age
Man's days have been a mixture
Of all that constitutes in life
A dark and gloomy picture."