By the time our “scherm” was finished the moon was coming up, and our dinner of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones was ready. How we enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I know no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant’s heart, and we had that on the morrow.
The floor of the cloister itself was covered with thousands of identical, horn-shaped, nine-sided tiles that had been joined together with machine-tool precision into a nonrepeating double-spiral pattern that was giving me motion sickness just looking at it. I turned my back on this and looked at a loaf of bread that was resting on the table. This was so fresh that steam was gushing out of the end — Arsibalt, an infamous heel-filcher, had already got to it. The loaf had been made by braiding several ropes of dough together in a nontrivial pattern that, I feared, had deep knot-theoretical significance and was named after some Elkhazgian Saunt.
Demme, sir!” exclaimed Titmouse, starting aside with an offended air— “d’ye think I don’t know how to manage a sword? By all that’s tremendous"— and plucking the taper weapon out of its scabbard, he waved it over his head; and throwing himself into the first position — he had latterly paid a good deal of attention to fencing — and with rather an excited air, he went through several of the preliminary movements. ‘Twas a subject for a painter, and exhibited a very striking spectacle — as an instance of power silently concentrated, and ready to be put forth upon an adequate occasion. The tailor and the valet, who stood separate from each other and at a safe and respectful distance from Mr. Titmouse, gazed with silent admiration at him.
His self-conceit was so intense, that it consumed every vestige of sense he had about him. He stood in solitary grandeur upon the lofty pillar of his pride, inaccessible to ridicule, and insensible indeed of its approach, like vanity “on a monument smiling at” scorn. Indeed,
“His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.”
In the progress of society we have dropped the physical part of the business; and instead of punching, scratching, kicking, biting, and knocking down one another, still true to the original principles of our nature, we are all endeavoring to circumvent one another; everybody is trying to take everybody in; the moment that one of us has got together a thing or two, he is pounced on by his neighbor, who in his turn falls a prey to another, and so on in endless succession. We cannot effectually help ourselves, though we are splitting our heads trying to discover devices, by way of laws, to restrain this propensity of our nature: it will not do; we are all overreaching, cheating, swindling, robbing one another, and if necessary, are ready to maim and murder one another in the prosecution of our designs. So it is with nations as with individuals. Truly, truly, we are a precious set.
Thus were thy arms suddenly held back from behind, just as they were encircling a pretty, plump a pigeon as ever nestled in them with pert and playful confidence, to be plucked! Alas, alas! And didst thou behold the danger to which it was exposed, as it fluttered upward unconsciously into the region where thine affectionate eye detected the keen hawk in deadly poise?
Mr. Gammon conceived a fearful, a shuddering loathing and disgust for the miscreant leader into these enormities; and, but for certain consequences, would have dispatched him with as much indifference as he would have laid arsenic in the way of a bold voracious rat, or killed a snake.
“Pray, sir, be silent!” exclaimed Mr. Aubrey, in a tone that electrified Gammon, who started from his chair. Mr. Aubrey’s face was whitened; his eye glanced lightning at his companion. Dagon-like, Gammon had put forth his hand and touched the ark of Aubrey’s honor. Gammon lost his color, and for, perhaps, the first time in his life, quailed before the majesty of man; ‘twas also the majesty of suffering; for he had been torturing a noble nature.
Placed in a situation which may, I think, be described as entirely without parallel, what is the first proceeding to which I resort? Do I seclude myself from all human society? Do I set my mind to analyze the abominable impossibility which, nevertheless, confronts me as an undeniable fact? Do I hurry back to London by the first train to consult the highest authorities, and to set a searching inquiry on foot immediately? No. I accept the shelter of a house which I had resolved never to degrade myself by entering again; and I sit, tippling spirits and water in the company of an old servant, at ten o’clock in the morning.
