“Grand, isn’t it? That’s the Power—our unknown Power—kicking and fighting to be let loose,” said young Mr. Cashell. “There she goes—kick—kick—kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it when I work a sending-machine—waves going into space, you know. T.R. is our call. Poole ought to answer with L.L.L.”
We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom of the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear “kiss—kiss—kiss” of the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the installation-pole.
“Poole is not ready. I’ll stay here and call you when he is.”
I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed once more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the light from the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved without cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. “And threw—and threw—and threw,” he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words—delivered roundly and clearly. These:—
And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.
The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his place, rubbing his hands.
It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats, or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink, and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:—
—Very cold it was. Very cold
The hare—the hare—the hare—
The birds——