So far
I'm getting along so comfortably that I begin to be afraid that I
must he one of the gifted few."
"It's rather late in the day for a Coronation Ode, isn't it?" said
Bertie.
"Of course," said Clovis; "this is going to be a Durbar
Recessional, the sort of thing that you can keep by you for all
time if you want to."
"Now I understand your choice of a place to write it in," said
Bertie van Tahn, with the air of one who has suddenly unravelled a
hitherto obscure problem; "you want to get the local temperature."
"I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the
mentally deficient," said Clovis, "but it seems I asked too much
of fate."
Bertie van Tahn prepared to use his towel as a weapon of
precision, but reflecting that he had a good deal of unprotected
coast-line himself, and that Clovis was equipped with a fountain-
pen as well as a towel, he relapsed pacifically into the depths of
his chair.
"May one hear extracts from the immortal work?" he asked. "I
promise that nothing that I hear now shall prejudice me against
borrowing a copy of the SMOKY CHIMNEY at the right moment."
"It's rather like casting pearls into a trough," remarked Clovis
pleasantly, "but I don't mind reading you bits of it.
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