"If you let a humbug like that impose upon you, Mac, I'll never own you for my friend. Any intelligent office-boy could write poems like that all day long!"
There was a movement in the room, and the guests began to settle in their seats or on the floor, and after a short while, Mr. Haverstock, who acted as chairman of the meeting, took his place in front of a small table, and Mr. Palfrey sat down beside him. The poet, said the chairman, would honour them by reading some new poems to them, after which he would open a discussion on Marriage. They all knew that Marriage was an important matter, affecting the lives of men and women to a far greater extent, probably, than anything else in the world, and it was desirable therefore that they should discuss it frankly and frequently. Problems would remain insoluble so long as people remained silent about them. He could not help expressing his regret to those present at the extraordinary reluctance which the average person had to revealing experiences of matrimony. He had initiated an important enquiry into the question of marital relationships with a view to discovering exactly what it was that caused so many marriages to fail, and he had had to abandon the enquiry because very few people were willing to tell anything about their marriages to him. There was a great deal of foolish reticence in the world ... at this point Mr. Palfrey emphatically said, "Hear! Hear!"... and he trusted that those present that evening would cast away false modesty and would say quite openly what their experiences had been. He would not detain them any longer ... he was quite certain that they were all very anxious to hear Mr. Palfrey ... and so without any more ado he would call upon him to read his poems and then to discuss the great and important question of Marriage.
VII
Mr. Palfrey read his poems in a curious sing-song fashion, beating time with his right hand as he did so. He seemed to be performing physical exercises rather than modulating his own accents, and on two occasions his gesture was longer than his poem. He read "Life" very slowly and very deliberately, saying the word "cawing" in a high-pitched tone, and prolonging it until his breath was exhausted. He recited a dozen of these poems, obtaining his greatest effect with, the last of them, which was entitled, "The Sea":
Immense, incalculable waste,
The dribblings from a giant's beard....
"Isn't it wonderful?" said an ecstatic girl sitting next to John.
"No," he replied.
She looked at him interrogatively, and he added, very aggressively, "I think it's twaddle!"
"Oh, do you?" she exclaimed as if she could scarcely believe her ears.
"I do," said John.