"
"Some mess of words, that," observed Cousin Egbert, and it did indeed
seem to be rather intimately phrased.
"Better come along with me," he again urged. There was a moment's
fateful silence, then, quite mechanically, I arose and prepared to
accompany him. In the hall below I handed him his evening stick and
gloves, which he absently took from me, and we presently traversed
that street of houses much in the fashion of the Floud house and
nearly all boasting some sculptured bit of wild life on their
terraces.
It was a calm night of late summer; all Nature seemed at peace. I
looked aloft and reflected that the same stars were shining upon the
civilization I had left so far behind. As we walked I lost myself in
musing pensively upon this curious astronomical fact and upon the
further vicissitudes to which I would surely be exposed. I compared
myself whimsically to an explorer chap who has ventured among a tribe
of natives and who must seem to adopt their weird manners and customs
to save himself from their fanatic violence.
From this I was aroused by Cousin Egbert, who, with sudden dismay
regarding his stick and gloves, uttered a low cry of anguish and
thrust them into my hands before I had divined his purpose.
"You'll have to tote them there things," he swiftly explained.
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