"Have you--_have_ you been seeking the meaning of the verses of some
peer-poet in the _Morning Post_?"
"Would--_would_ it were but that," he groaned, picking a single straw
from the truss or so that stuck porcupine-quill-wise in his tangled fell
of hair.
"I have it!" I cried. "You have an attack of veritable 'Whitmania,'
arising from a too long indulgence in the intoxicating yet enervating
flow of Swinburnian superlatives?"
"The deuce a bit of it," he snapped, testily.