" This was, indeed, a
commonplace enough inscription, but it gathered unexpected force when I
turned over a leaf and my eyes rested on the title, where Bragdon's love
of substitutes had led him to put my name where Milton's had been.
The discovery was too much for my equanimity. I was thoroughly
disconcerted, almost angry, and I felt, for the first time in my life,
that there had been vagaries in Bragdon's character with which I could not
entirely sympathize; but in justice to myself, it must be said, these
sentiments were induced by first thoughts only. Certainly there could be
but one way in which Bragdon's substitution of my name for Milton's could
prove injurious or offensive to me who was his friend, and that was by his
putting that copy out before the world to be circulated at random, which
avenue to my discomfiture he had effectually closed by leaving the book in
my hands, to do with it whatsoever I pleased. Second thoughts showed me
that it was only a fear of what the outsider might think that was
responsible for my temporary disloyalty to my departed comrade's memory,
and then when I remembered how thoroughly we twain had despised the
outsider, I was so ashamed of my aberration that I immediately renewed my
allegiance to the late King Tom; so heartily, in fact, that my emotions
wellnigh overcame me, and I found it best to seek distractions in the
outer world.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198