The poets having indicated that they were going to take a few moments
off, the words were free to stand at ease also. They did so with a
great sigh of relief, especially one whom I recognised by his intense
weariness and also by the martial glow on his features, his muddied and
torn clothes and the bandage round his head.
"You're 'war,'" I said, crossing over to speak to him.
"Yes," he replied, "I'm 'war,' and I'm very tired."
"They're sweating you?" I asked.
"Horribly," he replied. "In whatever they're writing about just now,
both poets and song-writers, they drag me in, and they will end lines
with me. Just to occur somewhere and be done with I shouldn't so much
mind; but they feel in honour bound to provide me with a rhyme. Still,"
he added meditatively, "there are compensations."
"How?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I find myself with more congenial companions than I
used to have. In the old days, when I wasn't sung at all, but was used
more or less academically, I often found myself arm-in-arm with 'star'
or 'far' or 'scar,' and I never really got on with them. We didn't
agree. There was something wrong. But now I get better associates;
'roar,' for example, is a certainty in one verse. In fact I don't mind
admitting I'm rather tired of 'roar,' true friends as we are.
"But I can see the poor young poetical fellows' difficulty; and, after
all, I do roar, don't I? Just as my old friend 'battle' here"--I bowed
to his companion--"is attached to 'rattle.'
"Of course," he went on, "I'm luckier than 'battle' really, because
I do get a few other fellows to walk with, such as 'corps'--very
often--and 'before' and--far too often--'gore'; but 'battle' is tied up
to 'rattle' for the rest of his life. They're inseparable--'battle' and
'rattle.' Directly you see one you know that the other is only a few
words away. We call them the Siamese Twins."