“Let me have your Sophocles,” were the visitor’s next words.
Reardon offered him a volume of the Oxford Pocket Classics.
“I prefer the Wunder, please.”
“It’s gone, my boy.”
“Gone?”
“Wanted a little cash.”
Biffen uttered a sound in which remonstrance and sympathy were blended.
“I’m sorry to hear that; very sorry. Well, this must do. Now, I want to know how you scan this chorus in the ‘Oedipus Rex.’”
Reardon took the volume, considered, and began to read aloud with metric emphasis.
“Choriambics, eh?” cried the other. “Possible, of course; but treat them as Ionics a minore with an anacrusis, and see if they don’t go better.”