But here's a neighbor on my right,
An Eager Ass, considered bright;
Asker of questions.... How he'll stand,
With earnest air and fidgy hand,
After this hour, telling you
He sat all night and burrowed through
Your book.... Oh, you'll be coy and he
Will simulate precosity,
And pedants both, you'll smile and smirk,
And leer, and hasten back to work....

'Twas this day week, sir, you returned
A theme of mine, from which I learned
(Through various comment on the side
Which you had scrawled) that I defied
The _highest rules of criticism_
For _cheap_ and _careless_ witticism....
'Are you quite sure that this could be?'
And
'Shaw is no authority!'
But Eager Ass, with what he's sent,
Plays havoc with your best per cent.

Still--still I meet you here and there...
When Shakespeare's played you hold a chair,
And some defunct, moth-eaten star
Enchants the mental prig you are...
A radical comes down and shocks
The atheistic orthodox?
You're representing Common Sense,
Mouth open, in the audience.
And, sometimes, even chapel lures
That conscious tolerance of yours,
That broad and beaming view of truth
(Including Kant and General Booth...)
And so from shock to shock you live,
A hollow, pale affirmative...

The hour's up... and roused from rest
One hundred children of the blest
Cheat you a word or two with feet
That down the noisy aisle-ways beat...
Forget on _narrow-minded earth_
The Mighty Yawn that gave you birth."

In April, Kerry Holiday left college and sailed for France to enroll in
the Lafayette Esquadrille. Amory's envy and admiration of this step
was drowned in an experience of his own to which he never succeeded in
giving an appropriate value, but which, nevertheless, haunted him for
three years afterward.

*****

THE DEVIL

Healy's they left at twelve and taxied to Bistolary's. There were Axia
Marlowe and Phoebe Column, from the Summer Garden show, Fred Sloane
and Amory. The evening was so very young that they felt ridiculous with
surplus energy, and burst into the cafe like Dionysian revellers.

"Table for four in the middle of the floor," yelled Phoebe. "Hurry, old
dear, tell 'em we're here!"

"Tell 'em to play 'Admiration'!" shouted Sloane. "You two order; Phoebe
and I are going to shake a wicked calf," and they sailed