But we brought forth and reared in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise.
What shelter to grow ripe is ours—
What leisure to grow wise?
I ran the gauntlet, narrowly missed collision with an impetuous soul (I hoped he liked his Characters when he met them), and flung free into the night, where I should have knocked my head against the stars. But the Devil caught me.
The brain-fever bird was fluting across the grey, dewy lawn, and the punkah had stopped again. "Go to Jehannum and get another man to pull," I said drowsily. "Exactly," said a voice from the inkpot.
Now the proof that this story is absolutely true lies in the fact that there will be no other to follow it.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.