CHAPTER MV




HERIOC RESOLUTION OF THE NOVELISSIMIST.





   No, by the anvil of lame Vulcan, I'll not budge. I'll dree my weird. I'll take it out in art. Bricks without straw, by the Phoenix Wand of Cheops, and by the Crowns of the Upper and the Lower Nile! A puritan community can never breed artists, for they feed on beauty; and in America one has to go for beauty to the caterpillar. Yes, there are some pretty decent insects here, I must admit. Thus comforted, let us return to those enthralling vicissitudes in the career of Sir Roger Bloxam which were interrupted about a month ago, something suddenly, by my taking over The International.


   You'll remember that Cardinal Mentula was absorbed in Browning. (The reader is requested not to attempt to parse Browning.) What's the object? cried Sir Roger. The Cardinal handed him a copy of Tristam Shandy. ``How are you working?'' Mentula passed him a Gulliver's Travels. ``Is it hard?'' Down came a copy of The Channings. ``What's the colour of his hair?'' He produced the Elegy in a Country Churchyard. ``And how do you feel?'' The busy churchman pointed to Jude the Obscure. ``Hot work, eh?'' The Cardinal laughingly opened a Tam-o Shanter. ``Who is he?'' An Erewhon was immediately indicated. ``What's the best part of him?'' Cardinal Mentula got out a volume of sermons by Dean Hole. ``How do you know?'' Evangeline was on the table in an instant....


   I could go on for an hour; but I do hate all this bloody cleverness.