You may imagine in what state of wondering I went out of that place, and
how little I could now do away with my curiosity. By the droll looks and
head-turnings which followed me from strangers that passed me by in the
street, I was made aware that I must be talking aloud to myself, and the
words which I had evidently uttered were these: “But who in the world
can he have smashed up?”
Of course, beneath the public stare and smile I kept the rest of
my thoughts to myself; yet they so possessed and took me from my
surroundings, that presently, while crossing Royal Street, I was nearly
run down by an electric car. Nor did even this serve to disperse my
preoccupation; my walk back to Court and Chancel streets is as if it had
not been; I can remember nothing about it, and the first account that
I took of external objects was to find myself sitting in my accustomed
chair in the Library, with the accustomed row of books about the battle
of Cowpens waiting on the table in front of me. How long we had thus
been facing each other, the books and I, I’ve not a notion. And with
such mysterious machinery are we human beings filled--machinery that is
in motion all the while, whether we are aware of it or not--that now,
with some part of my mind, and with my pencil assisting, I composed
several stanzas to my kingly ancestor, the goal of my fruitless search;
and yet during the whole process of my metrical exercise I was really
thinking and wondering about John Mayrant, his battles and his loves.