"Please tell it," she said, sweetly.
"I shall have to relate it clothed in that artificial garb known as literary style," he explained, deprecatingly.
"It doesn't matter," I said, "I never noticed any style at all in your story of the thermosaurus."
He smiled gratefully, and passed his hand over his face; a far-away expression came into his eyes, and he slowly began, hesitating, as though talking to himself:
XXII[ToC]
"It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender steeples floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire of the great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords until my ears ached.
"When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang from the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one of the iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue, brought me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a siphon.