It commenced the day after we took old man Stumpton out codfishing. Me
and Cap'n Jonadab both told Peter T. Brown that cod wa'n't biting much
at that season, but he said cod be jiggered.
“What's troubling me just now is landing suckers,” he says.
So the four of us got into the Patience M.--she's Jonadab's catboat--and
sot sail for the Crab Ledge. And we hadn't more'n got our lines over the
side than we struck into a school of dogfish. Now, if you know anything
about fishing you know that when the dogfish strike on it's “good-by,
cod!” So when Stumpton hauled a big fat one over the rail I could tell
that Jonadab was ready to swear. But do you think it disturbed your old
friend, Peter Brown? No, sir! He never winked an eye.
“By Jove!” he sings out, staring at that dogfish as if 'twas a gold
dollar. “By Jove!” says he, “that's the finest specimen of a Labrador
mack'rel ever I see. Bait up, Stump, and go at 'em again.”
So Stumpton, having lived in Montana ever sence he was five years old,
and not having sighted salt water in all that time, he don't know but
what there IS such critters as “Labrador mack'rel,” and he goes at 'em,
hammer and tongs. When we come ashore we had eighteen dogfish, four
sculpin and a skate, and Stumpton was the happiest loon in Ostable
County. It was all we could do to keep him from cooking one of them
“mack'rel” with his own hands. If Jonadab hadn't steered him out of the
way while I sneaked down to the Port and bought a bass, we'd have had to
eat dogfish--we would, as sure as I'm a foot high.
Stumpton and his daughter, Maudina, was at the Old Home House.
'Twas late in September, and the boarders had cleared out. Old
Dillaway--Peter's father-in-law--had decoyed the pair on from Montana
because him and some Wall Street sharks were figgering on buying some
copper country out that way that Stumpton owned. Then Dillaway was took
sick, and Peter, who was just back from his wedding tower, brought the
Montana victims down to the Cape with the excuse to give 'em a good time
alongshore, but really to keep 'em safe and out of the way till Ebenezer
got well enough to finish robbing 'em. Belle--Peter's wife--stayed
behind to look after papa.
Stumpton was a great tall man, narrer in the beam, and with a figgerhead
like a henhawk. He enjoyed himself here at the Cape. He fished, and
loafed, and shot at a mark. He sartinly could shoot. The only thing he
was wishing for was something alive to shoot at, and Brown had promised
to take him out duck shooting. 'Twas too early for ducks, but that
didn't worry Peter any; he'd a-had ducks to shoot at if he bought all
the poultry in the township.
Maudina was like her name, pretty, but sort of soft and mushy. She had
big blue eyes and a baby face, and her principal cargo was poetry. She
had a deckload of it, and she'd heave it overboard every time the wind
changed. She was forever ordering the ocean to “roll on,” but she didn't
mean it; I had her out sailing once when the bay was a little mite
rugged, and I know. She was just out of a convent school, and you could
see she wasn't used to most things--including men.
The first week slipped along, and everything was serene. Bulletins from
Ebenezer more encouraging every day, and no squalls in sight. But 'twas
almost too slick. I was afraid the calm was a weather breeder, and sure
enough, the hurricane struck us the day after that fishing trip.
Peter had gone driving with Maudina and her dad, and me and Cap'n
Jonadab was smoking on the front piazza. I was pulling at a pipe, but
the cap'n had the home end of one of Stumpton's cigars harpooned on the
little blade of his jackknife, and was busy pumping the last drop of
comfort out of it. I never see a man who wanted to get his money's wuth
more'n Jonadab, I give you my word, I expected to see him swaller that
cigar remnant every minute.
And all to once he gives a gurgle in his throat.
“Take a drink of water,” says I, scared like.
“Well, by time!” says he, pointing.
A feller had just turned the corner of the house and was heading up in
our direction. He was a thin, lengthy craft, with more'n the average
amount of wrists sticking out of his sleeves, and with long black hair
trimmed aft behind his ears and curling on the back of his neck. He
had high cheek bones and kind of sunk-in black eyes, and altogether he
looked like “Dr. Macgoozleum, the Celebrated Blackfoot Medicine Man.”
If he'd hollered: “Sagwa Bitters, only one dollar a bottle!” I wouldn't
have been surprised.
But his clothes--don't say a word! His coat was long and buttoned up
tight, so's you couldn't tell whether he had a vest on or not--though
'twas a safe bet he hadn't--and it and his pants was made of the loudest
kind of black-and-white checks. No nice quiet pepper-and-salt, you
understand, but the checkerboard kind, the oilcloth kind, the kind that
looks like the marble floor in the Boston post-office. They was pretty
tolerable seedy, and so was his hat. Oh, he was a last year's bird's
nest NOW, but when them clothes was fresh--whew! the northern lights and
a rainbow mixed wouldn't have been more'n a cloudy day 'longside of him.
He run up to the piazza like a clipper coming into port, and he sweeps
off that rusty hat and hails us grand and easy.
“Good-morning, gentlemen,” says he.
“We don't want none,” says Jonadab, decided.
The feller looked surprised. “I beg your pardon,” says he. “You don't
want any--what?”
“We don't want any 'Life of King Solomon' nor 'The World's Big
Classifyers.' And we don't want to buy any patent paint, nor sewing
machines, nor clothes washers, nor climbing evergreen roses, nor
rheumatiz salve. And we don't want our pictures painted, neither.”
Jonadab was getting excited. Nothing riles him wuss than a peddler,
unless it's a woman selling tickets to a church fair. The feller swelled
up until I thought the top button on that thunderstorm coat would drag
anchor, sure.
“You are mistaken,” says he. “I have called to see Mr. Peter Brown; he
is--er--a relative of mine.”
Well, you could have blown me and Jonadab over with a cat's-paw. We went
on our beam ends, so's to speak. A relation of Peter T.'s; why, if he'd
been twice the panorama he was we'd have let him in when he said that.
Loud clothes, we figgered, must run in the family. We remembered how
Peter was dressed the first time we met him.
“You don't say!” says I. “Come right up and set down, Mr.--Mr.--”
“Montague,” says the feller. “Booth Montague. Permit me to present my
card.”
He drove into the hatches of his checkerboards and rummaged around, but
he didn't find nothing but holes, I jedge, because he looked dreadful
put out, and begged our pardons five or six times.
“Dear me!” says he. “This is embarassing. I've forgot my cardcase.”
We told him never mind the card; any of Peter's folks was more'n
welcome. So he come up the steps and set down in a piazza chair like
King Edward perching on his throne. Then he hove out some remarks about
its being a nice morning, all in a condescending sort of way, as if
he usually attended to the weather himself, but had been sort of busy
lately, and had handed the job over to one of the crew. We told him all
about Peter, and Belle, and Ebenezer, and about Stumpton and Maudina.
He was a good deal interested, and asked consider'ble many questions.
Pretty soon we heard a carriage rattling up the road.
“Hello!” says I. “I guess that's Peter and the rest coming now.”
Mr. Montague got off his throne kind of sudden.
“Ahem!” says he. “Is there a room here where I may--er--receive Mr.
Brown in a less public manner? It will be rather a--er--surprise for
him, and--”
Well, there was a good deal of sense in that. I know 'twould surprise
ME to have such an image as he was sprung on me without any notice. We
steered him into the gents' parlor, and shut the door. In a minute the
horse and wagon come into the yard. Maudina said she'd had a “heavenly”
drive, and unloaded some poetry concerning the music of billows and pine
trees, and such. She and her father went up to their rooms, and when the
decks was clear Jonadab and me tackled Peter T.
“Peter,” says Jonadab, “we've got a surprise for you. One of your
relations has come.”
Brown, he did look surprised, but he didn't act as he was any too
joyful.
“Relation of MINE?” says he. “Come off! What's his name?”
We told him Montague, Booth Montague. He laughed.
“Wake up and turn over,” he says. “They never had anything like that in
my family. Booth Montague! Sure 'twa'n't Algernon Cough-drops?”
We said no, 'twas Booth Montague, and that he was waiting in the gents'
parlor. So he laughed again, and said somethin' about sending for Laura
Lean Jibbey, and then we started.
The checkerboard feller was standing up when we opened the door. “Hello,
Petey!” says he, cool as a cucumber, and sticking out a foot and a half
of wrist with a hand at the end of it.
Now, it takes considerable to upset Peter Theodosius Brown. Up to
that time and hour I'd have bet on him against anything short of an
earthquake. But Booth Montague done it--knocked him plumb out of water.
Peter actually turned white.
“Great--” he began, and then stopped and swallered. “HANK!” he says, and
set down in a chair.
“The same,” says Montague, waving the starboard extension of the
checkerboard. “Petey, it does me good to set my eyes on you. Especially
now, when you're the real thing.”
Brown never answered for a minute. Then he canted over to port and
reached down into his pocket. “Well,” says he, “how much?”
But Hank, or Booth, or Montague--whatever his name was--he waved his
flipper disdainful. “Nun-nun-nun-no, Petey, my son,” he says, smiling.
“It ain't 'how much?' this time. When I heard how you'd rung the bell
the first shot out the box and was rolling in coin, I said to myself:
'Here's where the prod comes back to his own.' I've come to live with
you, Petey, and you pay the freight.”
Peter jumped out of the chair. “LIVE with me!” he says. “You Friday
evening amateur night! It's back to 'Ten Nights in a Barroom' for
yours!” he says.
“Oh, no, it ain't!” says Hank, cheerful. “It'll be back to Popper
Dillaway and Belle. When I tell 'em I'm your little cousin Henry and how
you and me worked the territories together--why--well, I guess there'll
be gladness round the dear home nest; hey?”
Peter didn't say nothing. Then he fetched a long breath and motioned
with his head to Cap'n Jonadab and me. We see we weren't invited to the
family reunion, so we went out and shut the door. But we did pity Peter;
I snum if we didn't!
It was most an hour afore Brown come out of that room. When he did he
took Jonadab and me by the arm and led us out back of the barn.
“Fellers,” he says, sad and mournful, “that--that plaster cast in a
crazy-quilt,” he says, referring to Montague, “is a cousin of mine.
That's the living truth,” says he, “and the only excuse I can make is
that 'tain't my fault. He's my cousin, all right, and his name's Hank
Schmults, but the sooner you box that fact up in your forgetory, the
smoother 'twill be for yours drearily, Peter T. Brown. He's to be Mr.
Booth Montague, the celebrated English poet, so long's he hangs out at
the Old Home; and he's to hang out here until--well, until I can dope
out a way to get rid of him.”
We didn't say nothing for a minute--just thought. Then Jonadab says,
kind of puzzled: “What makes you call him a poet?” he says.
Peter answered pretty snappy: “'Cause there's only two or three jobs
that a long-haired image like him could hold down,” he says. “I'd call
him a musician if he could play 'Bedelia' on a jews'-harp; but he
can't, so's he's got to be a poet.”
And a poet he was for the next week or so. Peter drove down to Wellmouth
that night and bought some respectable black clothes, and the follering
morning, when the celebrated Booth Montague come sailing into the dining
room, with his curls brushed back from his forehead, and his new cutaway
on, and his wrists covered up with clean cuffs, blessed if he didn't
look distinguished--at least, that's the only word I can think of that
fills the bill. And he talked beautiful language, not like the slang he
hove at Brown and us in the gents' parlor.
Peter done the honors, introducing him to us and the Stumptons as
a friend who'd come from England unexpected, and Hank he bowed and
scraped, and looked absent-minded and crazy-like a poet ought to. Oh, he
done well at it! You could see that 'twas just pie for him.
And 'twas pie for Maudina, too. Being, as I said, kind of green
concerning men folks, and likewise taking to poetry like a cat to fish,
she just fairly gushed over this fraud. She'd reel off a couple of
fathom of verses from fellers named Spencer or Waller, or such like, and
he'd never turn a hair, but back he'd come and say they was good, but he
preferred Confucius, or Methuselah, or somebody so antique that she nor
nobody else ever heard of 'em. Oh, he run a safe course, and he had HER
in tow afore they turned the first mark.
Jonadab and me got worried. We see how things was going, and we didn't
like it. Stumpton was having too good a time to notice, going after
“Labrador mack'rel” and so on, and Peter T. was too busy steering
the cruises to pay any attention. But one afternoon I come by the
summerhouse unexpected, and there sat Booth Montague and Maudina, him
with a clove hitch round her waist, and she looking up into his eyes
like they were peekholes in the fence 'round paradise. That was enough.
It just simply COULDN'T go any further, so that night me and Jonadab had
a confab up in my room.
“Barzilla,” says the cap'n, “if we tell Peter that that relation of
his is figgering to marry Maudina Stumpton for her money, and that he's
more'n likely to elope with her, 'twill pretty nigh kill Pete, won't it?
No, sir; it's up to you and me. We've got to figger out some way to get
rid of the critter ourselves.”
“It's a wonder to me,” I says, “that Peter puts up with him. Why don't
he order him to clear out, and tell Belle if he wants to? She can't
blame Peter 'cause his uncle was father to an outrage like that.”
Jonadab looks at me scornful. “Can't, hey?” he says. “And her high-toned
and chumming in with the bigbugs? It's easy to see you never was
married,” says he.
Well, I never was, so I shut up.
We set there and thought and thought, and by and by I commenced to sight
an idee in the offing. 'Twas hull down at first, but pretty soon I got
it into speaking distance, and then I broke it gentle to Jonadab. He
grabbed at it like the “Labrador mack'rel” grabbed Stumpton's hook. We
set up and planned until pretty nigh three o'clock, and all the next
day we put in our spare time loading provisions and water aboard the
Patience M. We put grub enough aboard to last a month.
Just at daylight the morning after that we knocked at the door of
Montague's bedroom. When he woke up enough to open the door--it took
some time, 'cause eating and sleeping was his mainstay--we told him that
we was planning an early morning fishing trip, and if he wanted to go
with the folks he must come down to the landing quick. He promised to
hurry, and I stayed by the door to see that he didn't get away. In about
ten minutes we had him in the skiff rowing off to the Patience M.
“Where's the rest of the crowd?” says he, when he stepped aboard.
“They'll be along when we're ready for 'em,” says I. “You go below
there, will you, and stow away the coats and things.”
So he crawled into the cabin, and I helped Jonadab get up sail. We
intended towing the skiff, so I made her fast astern. In half a shake we
was under way and headed out of the cove. When that British poet stuck
his nose out of the companion we was abreast the p'int.
“Hi!” says he, scrambling into the cockpit. “What's this mean?”
I was steering and feeling toler'ble happy over the way things had
worked out.
“Nice sailing breeze, ain't it?” says I, smiling.
“Where's Mau-Miss Stumpton?” he says, wild like.
“She's abed, I cal'late,” says I, “getting her beauty sleep. Why don't
YOU turn in? Or are you pretty enough now?”
He looked first at me and then at Jonadab, and his face turned a little
yellower than usual.
“What kind of a game is this?” he asks, brisk. “Where are you going?”
'Twas Jonadab that answered. “We're bound,” says he, “for the Bermudas.
It's a lovely place to spend the winter, they tell me,” he says.
That poet never made no remarks. He jumped to the stern and caught hold
of the skiff's painter. I shoved him out of the way and picked up the
boat hook. Jonadab rolled up his shirt sleeves and laid hands on the
centerboard stick.
“I wouldn't, if I was you,” says the cap'n.
Jonadab weighs pretty close to two hundred, and most of it's gristle.
I'm not quite so much, fur's tonnage goes, but I ain't exactly a canary
bird. Montague seemed to size things up in a jiffy. He looked at us,
then at the sail, and then at the shore out over the stern.
“Done!” says he. “Done! And by a couple of 'farmers'!”
And down he sets on the thwart.
Well, we sailed all that day and all that night. 'Course we didn't
really intend to make the Bermudas. What we intended to do was to cruise
around alongshore for a couple of weeks, long enough for the Stumptons
to get back to Dillaway's, settle the copper business and break for
Montana. Then we was going home again and turn Brown's relation over to
him to take care of. We knew Peter'd have some plan thought out by that
time. We'd left a note telling him what we'd done, and saying that we
trusted to him to explain matters to Maudina and her dad. We knew that
explaining was Peter's main holt.
The poet was pretty chipper for a spell. He set on the thwart and
bragged about what he'd do when he got back to “Petey” again. He said we
couldn't git rid of him so easy. Then he spun yarns about what him and
Brown did when they was out West together. They was interesting yarns,
but we could see why Peter wa'n't anxious to introduce Cousin Henry to
Belle. Then the Patience M. got out where 'twas pretty rugged, and she
rolled consider'ble and after that we didn't hear much more from friend
Booth--he was too busy to talk.
That night me and Jonadab took watch and watch. In the morning it
thickened up and looked squally. I got kind of worried. By nine o'clock
there was every sign of a no'theaster, and we see we'd have to put in
somewheres and ride it out. So we headed for a place we'll call Baytown,
though that wa'n't the name of it. It's a queer, old-fashioned town, and
it's on an island; maybe you can guess it from that.
Well, we run into the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into
the cabin to get some terbacker, and I was for'ard coiling the throat
halyard. All at once I heard oars rattling, and I turned my head; what I
see made me let out a yell like a siren whistle.
There was that everlasting poet in the skiff--you remember we'd
been towing it astern--and he was jest cutting the painter with his
jackknife. Next minute he'd picked up the oars and was heading for the
wharf, doubling up and stretching out like a frog swimming, and with his
curls streaming in the wind like a rooster's tail in a hurricane. He
had a long start 'fore Jonadab and me woke up enough to think of chasing
him.
But we woke up fin'lly, and the way we flew round that catboat was a
caution. I laid into them halyards, and I had the mainsail up to the
peak afore Jonadab got the anchor clear of the bottom. Then I jumped to
the tiller, and the Patience M. took after that skiff like a pup after
a tomcat. We run alongside the wharf just as Booth Hank climbed over the
stringpiece.
“Get after him, Barzilla!” hollers Cap'n Jonadab. “I'll make her fast.”
Well, I hadn't took more'n three steps when I see 'twas goin' to be a
long chase. Montague unfurled them thin legs of his and got over the
ground something wonderful. All you could see was a pile of dust and
coat tails flapping.
Up on the wharf we went and round the corner into a straggly kind of
road with old-fashioned houses on both sides of it. Nobody in the
yards, nobody at the windows; quiet as could be, except that off ahead,
somewheres, there was music playing.
That road was a quarter of a mile long, but we galloped through it so
fast that the scenery was nothing but a blur. Booth was gaining all the
time, but I stuck to it like a good one. We took a short cut through a
yard, piled over a fence and come out into another road, and up at the
head of it was a crowd of folks--men and women and children and dogs.
“Stop thief!” I hollers, and 'way astern I heard Jonadab bellering:
“Stop thief!”
Montague dives headfirst for the crowd. He fell over a baby carriage,
and I gained a tack 'fore he got up. He wa'n't more'n ten yards ahead
when I come busting through, upsetting children and old women, and
landed in what I guess was the main street of the place and right
abreast of a parade that was marching down the middle of it.
First there was the band, four fellers tooting and banging like fo'mast
hands on a fishing smack in a fog. Then there was a big darky toting a
banner with “Jenkins' Unparalleled Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, No.
2,” on it in big letters. Behind him was a boy leading two great, savage
looking dogs--bloodhounds, I found out afterwards--by chains. Then come
a pony cart with Little Eva and Eliza's child in it; Eva was all gold
hair and beautifulness. And astern of her was Marks the Lawyer, on his
donkey. There was lots more behind him, but these was all I had time to
see just then.
Now, there was but one way for Booth Hank to get acrost that street, and
that was to bust through the procession. And, as luck would have it, the
place he picked out to cross was just ahead of the bloodhounds. And the
first thing I knew, them dogs stretched out their noses and took a long
sniff, and then bust out howling like all possessed. The boy, he tried
to hold 'em, but 'twas no go. They yanked the chains out of his hands
and took after that poet as if he owed 'em something. And every one of
the four million other dogs that was in the crowd on the sidewalks fell
into line, and such howling and yapping and scampering and screaming you
never heard.
Well, 'twas a mixed-up mess. That was the end of the parade. Next minute
I was racing across country with the whole town and the Uncle Tommers
astern of me, and a string of dogs stretched out ahead fur's you could
see. 'Way up in the lead was Booth Montague and the bloodhounds, and
away aft I could hear Jonadab yelling: “Stop thief!”
'Twas lively while it lasted, but it didn't last long. There was a
little hill at the end of the field, and where the poet dove over
'tother side of it the bloodhounds all but had him. Afore I got to the
top of the rise I heard the awfullest powwow going on in the holler, and
thinks I: “THEY'RE EATING HIM ALIVE!”
But they wan't. When I hove in sight Montague was setting up on the
ground at the foot of the sand bank he'd fell into, and the two hounds
was rolling over him, lapping his face and going on as if he was their
grandpa jest home from sea with his wages in his pocket. And round them,
in a double ring, was all the town dogs, crazy mad, and barking and
snarling, but scared to go any closer.
In a minute more the folks begun to arrive; boys first, then girls and
men, and then the women. Marks came trotting up, pounding the donkey
with his umbrella.
“Here, Lion! Here, Tige!” he yells. “Quit it! Let him alone!” Then he
looks at Montague, and his jaw kind of drops.
“Why--why, HANK!” he says.
A tall, lean critter, in a black tail coat and a yaller vest and
lavender pants, comes puffing up. He was the manager, we found out
afterward.
“Have they bit him?” says he. Then he done just the same as Marks;
his mouth opened and his eyes stuck out. “HANK SCHMULTS, by the living
jingo!” says he.
Booth Montague looks at the two of 'em kind of sick and lonesome.
“Hello, Barney! How are you, Sullivan?” he says.
I thought 'twas about time for me to get prominent. I stepped up, and
was just going to say something when somebody cuts in ahead of me.
“Hum!” says a voice, a woman's voice, and tolerable crisp and vinegary.
“Hum! it's you, is it? I've been looking for YOU!”
'Twas Little Eva in the pony cart. Her lovely posy hat was hanging on
the back of her neck, her gold hair had slipped back so's you could see
the black under it, and her beautiful red cheeks was kind of streaky.
She looked some older and likewise mad.
“Hum!” says she, getting out of the cart. “It's you, is it, Hank
Schmults? Well, p'r'aps you'll tell me where you've been for the last
two weeks? What do you mean by running away and leaving your--”
Montague interrupted her. “Hold on, Maggie, hold on!” he begs. “DON'T
make a row here. It's all a mistake; I'll explain it to you all right.
Now, please--”
“Explain!” hollers Eva, kind of curling up her fingers and moving toward
him. “Explain, will you? Why, you miserable, low-down--”
But the manager took hold of her arm. He'd been looking at the crowd,
and I cal'late he saw that here was the chance for the best kind of an
advertisement. He whispered in her ear. Next thing I knew she clasped
her hands together, let out a scream and runs up and grabs the
celebrated British poet round the neck.
“Booth!” says she. “My husband! Saved! Saved!”
And she went all to pieces and cried all over his necktie. And then
Marks trots up the child, and that young one hollers: “Papa! papa!” and
tackles Hank around the legs. And I'm blessed if Montague don't slap his
hand to his forehead, and toss back his curls, and look up at the sky,
and sing out: “My wife and babe! Restored to me after all these years!
The heavens be thanked!”
Well, 'twas a sacred sort of time. The town folks tiptoed away, the men
looking solemn but glad, and the women swabbing their deadlights and
saying how affecting 'twas, and so on. Oh, you could see that show would
do business THAT night, if it never did afore.
The manager got after Jonadab and me later on, and did his best to pump
us, but he didn't find out much. He told us that Montague belonged to
the Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, and that he'd disappeared a fortni't or
so afore, when they were playing at Hyannis. Eva was his wife, and the
child was their little boy. The bloodhounds knew him, and that's why
they chased him so.
“What was you two yelling 'Stop thief!' after him for?” says he. “Has he
stole anything?”
We says “No.”
“Then what did you want to get him for?” he says.
“We didn't,” says Jonadab. “We wanted to get rid of him. We don't want
to see him no more.”
You could tell that the manager was puzzled, but he laughed.
“All right,” says he. “If I know anything about Maggie--that's Mrs.
Schmults--he won't get loose ag'in.”
We only saw Montague to talk to but once that day. Then he peeked out
from under the winder shade at the hotel and asked us if we'd told
anybody where he'd been. When he found we hadn't, he was thankful.
“You tell Petey,” says he, “that he's won the whole pot, kitty and all.
I don't think I'll visit him again, nor Belle, neither.”
“I wouldn't,” says I. “They might write to Maudina that you was a
married man. And old Stumpton's been praying for something alive to
shoot at,” I says.
The manager gave Jonadab and me a couple of tickets, and we went to the
show that night. And when we saw Booth Hank Montague parading about the
stage and defying the slave hunters, and telling 'em he was a free man,
standing on the Lord's free soil, and so on, we realized 'twould have
been a crime to let him do anything else.
“As an imitation poet,” says Jonadab, “he was a kind of mildewed
article, but as a play actor--well, there may be some that can beat him,
but _I_ never see 'em!”