David drew from his pocket the letter that had crushed the heart beneath it. He spread it on his knee.
“I have seen, Hermann,” he said brokenly. “Look you.”
Hermann looked. He looked from the gallant tricolor to the words below, and one phrase stood forth and went to his heart. “Mort dans la gloire pour la patrie: Robert Humain.”
Jonathan's fingers crept to David's knee and clung there. David's hand went to Jonathan's shoulder. The two old heads sagged lower and lower and closer and closer.
And Terry the Cop, who had crossed the street in five leaps with the liveliest anticipation of trouble in the first degree, took one look, turned hastily away, and huskily commanded a storm-beaten sparrow in the path to move on.
ORPHEUS
Who Made Music in Our Square
A PLAYWRIGHT named Euripides was the means of bringing us together. He sat hunched upon a bench in Our Square—not Euripides, of course, but this strange disciple of his—over a little book. When the church clock struck twelve he arose and unfolded himself to preposterous lengths. He stepped casually over a four-foot wire, strode across forbidden grass plots, and leaned pensively against the northern boundary fence. Although it was a six-foot fence, he jutted considerably above it. I glanced from him back to the bench he had just quitted. There lay his book. I picked it up. It was “The Bacchae.” In the original, if you please!