condoning, with the familiar weakness of the schoolmarm, his Gargantuan excess as a pardonable whimsy of genius.
She was somewhat academically mirthful over the literary bacchanalia, as a professor in a Baptist college smacks his lips appetizingly and beams ruddily at his classes when he reads of sack and porter and tankards foaming with the musty ale. All this is part of the liberal tradition. Men of the world are broadminded. Witness Professor Albert Thorndyke Firkins, of the University of Chicago, at the Falcon in Soho. Smiling bravely, he sits over a half-pint of bitter beer, in the company of a racing tout, a sway— backed barmaid, broad in the stern, with adjustable teeth, and three companionable tarts from Lisle street, who are making the best of two pints of Guinness. With eager impatience he awaits the arrival of G. K. Chesterton and E. V. Lucas.
“O rare Ben Jonson!” Margaret Leonard sighed with gentle laughter. “Ah, Lord!”
“My God, boy!” Sheba roared, snatching the suggested motif of conversation out of the air, and licking her buttered fingers noisily as she stormed into action. “God bless him!” Her hairy red face burned like clover, her veinous eyes were tearful bright. “God bless him,’Gene! He was as English as roast beef and a tankard of musty ale!”
“Ah, Lord!” sighed Margaret. “He was a genius if ever there was one.” With misty eyes she gazed far off, a thread of laughter on her mouth. “Whee!” she laughed gently. “Old Ben!”
“And say,’Gene!” Sheba continued, bending forward with a fat hand gripped upon her knee. “Do you know that the greatest tribute to Shakespeare’s genius is from his hand?”
“Ah, I tell you, boy!” said Margaret, with darkened eyes. Her voice was husky. He was afraid she was going to weep.
“And yet the fools!” Sheba yelled. “The mean little two-by-two pusillanimous swill-drinking fools—”
“Whee!” gently Margaret moaned. John Dorsey turned his chalk-white face to the boy and whined with vacant appreciation, winking his head pertly. Ah absently!
