He hurled the written book to the floor and groped his way to the window, blinded with the tears he would not shed. The golden and salmon hued glory of the sunset, painting the spires and house tops with a thousand shades of flame, fell full upon his hopeless head, and conscious of the horrible mockery of such a halo at a time when only darkness and despair seemed to surround his existence, the poor fellow buried his face in his arms on the window-sill and sobbed like a beaten child.
After a while, when the final bitterness of his grief and disappointment had passed he left the window. As he crossed the room his eye fell upon the rejected poems, which lay on the floor bathed in the crimson and yellow riot of a sunbeam. He stood for a moment as though transfixed, then as his heart filled with a sudden revulsion of feeling he knelt and clasped the manuscript to his breast with a little cry.
"No, no," he murmured brokenly, "I did n't mean it, I did n't mean it, for such as you are you 're all I have."
When Buster opened the door a few moments later he found his master sitting in his favorite arm-chair in front of the fireplace in which flickered a tiny fire, lighted for the sake of its cheering influence as the chill of fall was still at least a month away.
"Well, sir?" asked the lad, hopefully. "Did he take 'em?"
"No, Buster, he came to bring them back," replied Moore, quite calmly. Buster made a remark as expressive as it was profane, which is saying much.
"Well, blow 'is hugly face!" he cried, in righteous indignation. "Hall that fuss hand then 'ands 'em back?"
"He did, Buster."
"Oh, Hi wishes Hi 'ad a knowed it. Babble's tumble wouldn't 'ave been a circumstance to the 'eader that little pot-bellied cove would 'ave tooken. Hi say, Mr. Moore, will you call me 'Pride' after this?"
"Why?" asked Moore, more cheerfully.