The Carnelian Cube

"Haw, haw, haw!" guffawed the field marshals, in a simultaneous outburst. "Him a poet!" Impy added: "What's the use of argufyin'? Shove him off, Colonel, and let's go on 'bout our business."

"You shet yo' mouth, too," said the Colonel, without turning his head. He was staring at Finch with the same chilling fixity he had given Marmaduke Mallory across the dinner table, and the ex-coach could not seem to withdraw his own eyes from those pinpoints of light. "This matter will be examined in the chivalrous but practical spirit of the old south, giving every man his fair chance to prove his virtues. You-all" he gestured with the pistol. "Make a poem. Right now."

"But it takes time—" began Finch.

"Right now. The Pegasus Lit'ry Society does not tolerate four-flushin' carpetbaggers."

Finch thought desperately. Even of his own poems he could for the moment recall only disconnected lines and fragments, and with that trick of mind-reading, the Colonel would be almost sure to spot quotation. But wait— hadn't there been an old Eighth Reader recitation piece about a boy in a similar fix? One could use partial quotation. He threw back his head and began:

"Wake! for the sun, a citizen of credit and renown,
Thick as the autumn leaves, treads the gay lilies down—"
The eyes of the bodyguard were like saucers, and he had to pause a moment. Then:
"I'm sick o' wastin' leather on her maiden eyes divine—
The little fishes of the sea have burst the battle-line!
My coat of arms now bring to me, we'll to the woods no more,
For curfew shall not ring upon the night's Plutonian shore.
The mountain looks on Marathon down by the great Greek sea,
She dwelt among the untrodden ways, and kneeling on one knee,
My love is like a red, red rose, and sank down on the floor—
Her feet beneath her petticoat, all buttoned down before,
Thrilled me, filled me, with yellow gold before the morning light;
Comrades leave me here a moment, burnt green, and blue and white."
"Kinda creepy," said Basil, and Finch was glad of the respite, but they evidently wanted more. He went on:
"They're hanging men and women at Bingen on the Rhine,
But it's always fair weather where the shore-lights shine.
What's the Latin name for parsley? Oh, Daisy tell me true!
'Twas night in the lonesome October, and loo, loo, loo.
Through the hushed Chorasmian waste, what rises,
stranger, say? We daren't go a-hunting for fear of old dog Tray."

The mouths of Finch's audience gaped to the tonsils. Colonel Lee shoved back his hat and scratched his head. "I reckon that's poetry all right, and it shore is unusual. What do you think, Impy? Can we sell a bookful of that down in Bummingham?"

"Ain't no good," said the gun-mam

"Why not?" asked the ColoneL

"No sex int'rest. Them Alabamians gotta have sex int'rest."

"Not all the time," argued Finch, "any more than they want a meal that's nothing but cake, cake, cake." He was flushed with success. "But we can give them a few poems of that kind, too, if they want them. Wait a minute." He leaned his chin on one hand for a moment, and then started again, more slowly:

"Work, work, work, all on the village green;
It takes a heap o' livin' to make dark Rosaleen.
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests on the point of that enchanted spear,
Look on my works and to the sky,
But on thy turf shall roses rear.
Hit and hard hit! Beside the old mill stream,
The up-and-down is like an idle dream."

Hyperion Weems cleared his throat. "Colonel, suh, I don't know what yon-all think, but I say anybody that kin make poems as original as them is a asset to the Pegasus Lit'ry Society."

"I dunno," said Impy. "Seems to me like I heard some o' thet bjefa', somewhere."

"You've heard all of it before," said Finch, boldly. "This is poetic montage, an invention of ray own. Most poems, you see, have good lines and then bad ones. Well, I say why not poetry that's all good lines, even if you take them from different sources. The thing that matters is the effect, not how you produce it."

The last vestiges of doubt cleared from the Colonel's face. "Nobly spoken, suh," he said, putting away his gun and extending his hand. "It is a gentleman's privilege, nay his duty, suh, to acknowledge an error. As for those dough-faced baboons who betrayed you in the race which you might easily have won, they shall reap the just reward of their villainy. Impy!"

"Yessir."

The Colonel gestured toward the boat-house and started for the car: "Up to the present yo' efforts have not met with the distinguished success they deserve, Mr. Finch, but we shall rectify that, we shall rectify that. In the hands of the Pegasus Lit'ry Society, suh, this work will spread to earth's remotest borders."

Thirteen:

The Colonel meant business. Finch had no more than bathed, dressed and visited Dr. Proctor for treatment of the wounds inflicted by Magnolia, than he was summoned to the library to be presented with a contract naming Richard Fitzhugh Lee as his publisher and literary agent, and awarding the boss 93% of the proceeds of the venture in recognition of his services. Save for the insertion of the publisher as the party of first interest, this was not so very different from other book contracts Finch had encountered. He signed gladly, and over the handshake that bound the bargain asked the Colonel whether the hall afforded a few volumes of verse. "I'll need them to select lines for more montages."

"Well, suh, now that you mention it, we are deficient in that form of literature here, a deficiency I expect to see you more than make good. All we have are collected works of J. Gordon Coogler, the great poet of the Southland, a personal acquaintance and object of veneration to my revered sire." He paused and blew his nose with energy into an immense bandanna to indicate emotion. "Memphis is not a poetical town. I suggest that you wait upon Theodore Harriman at the office of the Nonpareil newspaper. You will wish to see him anyways about the details of the publication of your own volume, and he has a collection that gives him the name of being the second most eccentric man in Memphis, yes, indeedy."

"Who is the most eccentric?"

The Colonel's expression became one of outraged dignity. "Suh, not even the license of a poet can excuse deliberate insult to the head of the Society. But I accept it as the insult of plain dumb' ignorance, and have the honor to inform you-all that I am the most eccentric, of co'se."

It occurred to Finch that he had not altogether re-established his position, and the impression was confirmed the following morning, when he found that instead of having either of the limousines, he was to go to town in the asthmatic bus that limped past the gates of Pegasus Hati.

It was his first real contact with the world beyond that structure, and he found the experience diverting, if a trifle hectic. The bus conductor was chewing tobacco and ejecting the juice with wonderful and nerve-racking accuracy out the window, past the knees of his passengers. The other half of Finch's seat was filled by a lady of ample proportions, strongly perfumed with garlic, who gave him one or two sidelong glances as the bus trundled forward, announced they were soul-mates and tried to seize him around the neck.

The other passengers took an immediate and excited interest. When Finch attempted to repulse the damsel, he was upbraided by a clerically-garbed gentleman, who turned round in the seat ahead to say that accepting the embraces of a pure woman was the fulfillment of God's law, and would increase his expectation of life. This drew fire from the bus-driver, who was apparently an atheist. He stopped his vehicle to take part in the argument, which had reached a stage of personalities just preceding that of blows when Finch managed to slip out the emergency exit during the confusion to continue his journey on foot.