me evening: "The painted gauze
of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight crape," sang Mr. Heritage;
and again, "The moon's pale leprosy sloughs the fields."

Dickson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer's
memory of the trenches. They were largely compounded of oaths, and
rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every
one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget. He did not like
them. Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird.
The evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which
scared the honest reader.

He kept his eyes on the book, for he did not know what to say. The
trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from
music-halls and haberdashers' shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to
cursing. He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words
which would combine politeness and honesty.

"Well?" said the poet.

"There's a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don't just seem
to scan very well."

Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you exactly. You like the meek
rhyme and the conventional epithet. Well, I don't. The world has
passed beyond that prettiness. You want the moon described as a
Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it's oftener like a beer
barrel or a cheese. You want a wealth of jolly words and real things
ruled out as unfit for poetry. I say there's nothing unfit for poetry.
Nothing, Dogson! Poetry's everywhere, and the real thing is commoner
among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish-heaps than in your Sunday
parlours. The poet's business is to distil it out of rottenness, and
show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their
place.... I wanted to call my book 'Drains,' for drains are sheer
poetry carrying off the excess and discards of human life to make the
fields green and the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked. So I
called it 'Whorls,' to express my view of the exquisite involution of
all things. Poetry is the fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let's
hear about your taste in prose."

Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He
disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his
etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness held.

He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.

Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.

"You're even deeper in the mud than I thou