' The closing
lines of the verse are:
'I am sick, I must die--
Lord, have mercy on me!'"
"Well," said Edward Henry, recovering, "I rather like the end. I think
the end's very appropriate."
Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking.
III
Mr.. Marrier was the first to recover from this blow to the prestige
of poetry. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that Mr.. Marrier
had suffered no inconvenience from the _contretemps_. His apparent
gleeful zest in life had not been impaired. He was a born optimist,
of an extreme type unknown beyond the circumferences of theatrical
circles.
"I _say_," he emphasized, "I've got an ideah. We ought to be
photographed like that. Do you no end of good." He glanced
encouragingly at Rose Euclid. "Don't you see it in the illustrated
papers? A prayvate supper-party at Wilkins's Hotel. Miss Ra-ose Euclid
reciting verse at a discussion of the plans for her new theatre in
Piccadilly Circus. The figures, reading from left to right, are, Mr.
Seven Sachs, the famous actor-author, Miss Rose Euclid, Mr. Carlo
Trent, the celebrated dramatic poet, Mr. Alderman Machin, the
well-known Midlands capitalist, and so on!" Mr. Marrier repeated, "and
so on."
"It's a notion," said Rose Euclid, dreamily.
"But how _can_ we be photographed?" Carlo Trent demanded with
irritation.
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