Now the spirit of romantic adventure slumbers in the most unexpected
places, and I have already told you of our plump Author's discontents.
He had been like a smouldering bomb for some years. Now, he burst out.
He suddenly became excited, energetic, stimulating, uplifting.
[Illustration: _The Author uplifts the devil._]
He stood over the drooping devil.
"But my dear chap!" he said. "You must pull yourself together. You
must do better than this. These confounded brutes may be doing all
sorts of mischief. While you--shirk...."
And so on. Real ginger.
"If I had some one to go with me. Some one who knew his way about."
The Author took whisky in the excitement of the moment. He began to
move very rapidly about his room and make short, sharp gestures. You
know how this sort of emotion wells up at times. "We must work from
some central place," said the Author. "To begin with, London perhaps."
It was not two hours later that they started, this Author and this
devil he had taken to himself, upon a mission. They went out in
overcoats and warm underclothing--the Author gave the devil a thorough
outfit, a double lot of Jaeger's extra thick--and they were resolved
to find the Wild Asses of the Devil and send them back to hell, or at
least the Author was, in the shortest possible time. In the picture
you will see him with a field-glass slung under his arm, the better to
watch suspected cases; in his pocket, wrapped in oiled paper, is a lot
of salt to use if by chance he finds a Wild Ass when the devil and his
string of oaths is not at hand. So he started. And when he had caught
and done for the Wild Asses, then the Author supposed that he would
come back to his nice little villa and his nice little wife, and to
his little daughter who said the amusing things, and to his
popularity, his large gilt-edged popularity, and--except for an added
prestige--be just exactly the man he had always been. Little knowing
that whosoever takes unto himself a devil and goes out upon a quest,
goes out upon a quest from which there is no returning----
Nevermore.
[Illustration: _Precipitate start of the Wild Ass hunters._]