"And the bum-swipes of Gargantua!" he exclaimed aloud. "How is't I did not think of them till now?" He reviewed with joy that chapter out of Rabelais wherein the young Gargantua tries his hand, as it were, at sundry swabs and wipers — not in desperation, to be sure, but in a spirit of pure empiricism, to discover the noblest for good and all — and awards the prize at last to the neck of a live white goose; but hens and guineas though there were a-plenty in the yard around the stable, not a goose could Ebenezer spy. "Nor were't fit," he decided a moment later, somewhat crestfallen, "save in a comic or satiric book, to use a silly fowl so hardly, that anon must perish to please our bellies. Good Rabelais surely meant it as a jest." In like manner, though with steadily mounting consternation, he considered what other parallels to his circumstances he could remember from what literature he had read, and rejected each in turn as inapplicable or irrelevant. Literature too, he concluded with heavy heart, availed him not, for though it afforded one a certain sophistication about life and a release from one's single mortal destiny, it did not, except accidentally, afford solutions to practical problems. And after literature, what else remained?
He recalled John McEvoy's accusation that he knew nothing of the entire great real world and the actual people in it. What, in fact, he asked himself, would others do in his place, who did know the great real world? But of such knowledgeable folk he knew but two at all well — Burlingame and McEvoy — and it was unthinkable of either that they would ever be in his place. Yet knowledge of the world, he quite understood, went further than personal acquaintance: how fared the savage hordes and heathen peoples of the earth, who never saw a proper bum-swab? The Arabs of the desert, who had no forest leaves nor any paper? Surely they contrived a measure of cleanliness in some wise, else each perforce would live a hermit and the race die out in a single generation. But of all the customs and exotic practices of which he'd heard from Burlingame or read in his youthful books of voyages and travel, only one could he remember that was to the point: the peasant folk of India, Burlingame had once observed to him, ate with their right hands only, inasmuch as the left was customarily used for personal cleanliness.
" 'Tis no solution, but a mere postponement of my difficulties," the poet sighed. "What hope hath he for other aid, whom wit and the world have both betrayed?"
He started, and despite the discomfort of his position, glowed with pleasure when he recognized the couplet. "Whate'er my straits, I still am virgin and poet! What hope hath he. . Would Heav'n I'd ink and quill, to pen him ere he cools!" He resolved in any case to dog-ear a leaf in his notebook as a reminder to set down the couplet later; it was not until the volume was spread open in his hands, and he was leafing through its empty pages, that he saw in it what none of his previous efforts had led him to.
"A propitious omen, b'm'faith!" said he, not a little awed. He regretted having torn out in the London posthouse those sheets in the ledger on which Ben Bragg had kept his accounts, not only because his years with Peter Paggen had soured his taste for the world of debit and credit, but also because he remembered how scarce was paper in the provinces, and so was loath to waste a single sheet. Indeed, so very reluctant was he, for a moment he seriously considered tearing out instead what few pages he'd already rhymed on: his Hymn to Chastity, the little quatrain recalled to him by Burlingame, and his preliminary salute to the ship Poseidon. Only the utter impropriety, the virtual sacrilege of the deed, restrained his hand and led him at length to use two fresh and virgin sheets — and then two more — for the work, which, completed with no small labor, owing to the drying effect of the breeze, he turned into an allegory thus: the unused sheets were songs unborn, which yet had power, as it were in utero, to cleanse and ennoble him who would in time deliver them — in short, the story of his career to date. Or they were token of his double essence, called forth too late to prevent his shame but able still to cleanse the leavings of his fear. Or again — but his pleasant allegorizing was broken off by the appearance, from the rear of the King o' the Seas, of befreckled Dolly, bringing his drawers and breeches out to dry. Despite his embarrassment he craned his head around the stable entrance and inquired after Burlingame, who had by this time been absent for nearly an hour; but the woman professed to know nothing of his whereabouts.
"Yet 'twas but across the street he went!" Ebenezer protested.
"I know naught of't," Dolly said stubbornly, and turned to go.
"Wait!" the poet called.
"Well?"
He blushed. " 'Tis something chill out here — might you fetch me a blanket from upstairs, or other covering, against my man's return?"
Dolly shook her head. " 'Tis not a service of the house, sir, save to them as stop the night. Your man paid me a shilling for the breeches, but naught was said of blankets."
"Plague take thee!" Ebenezer cried, in his wrath almost forgetting to conceal himself. "Was Midas e'er so greedy as a woman? You'll get thy filthy shilling anon, when my man appears!"
"No penny, no paternoster," the girl said pertly. "I have no warrant he'll appear."
"Thy master shall hear of this impertinence!"
She shrugged, Burlingame-like.
"A toddy, then, i'God, or coffee, ere I take ill! 'Sheart, girl, I am — " He checked himself, remembering the pirate captains. " 'Tis a gentleman that asks you, not a common sailor!"
"Were't King William himself he'd have not a sip on credit at the King o' the Seas."
Ebenezer gave over the attempt. "If I must catch my death in this foul stable," he sighed, "might you at least provide me ink and quill, or is that too no service of the house?"
"Ink and quill are free for all to use," Dolly allowed, and shortly brought them to the stable door.
"Ye must use your own book to scribble in," she declared. "Paper's too dear to throw away."
"And I threatened you with your master! Marry, thou'rt his fortune!"
Alone again, he set on the dog-eared page of his ledger book that aphoristic couplet which had so aided him, and would have tried his hand at further verses, but the discomfort of his situation made creation impossible. The passage of time alarmed him: the sun passed the meridian and began its fall toward the west; soon, surely, it would be time to board the shallop which was to ferry them to the Poseidon, and still there was no sign of Burlingame. The wind changed direction, blew more directly off the harbor and into the stable, and chilled the poet through. At length he was obliged to seek shelter in an empty stall nearby, where enough fresh hay was piled to cover his legs and hips when he sat in it. Indeed, after his initial distaste he found himself warm and comfortable enough, if still a trifle apprehensive — as much for Burlingame's welfare as for his own, for he readily imagined his friend's having fallen afoul of the pirate captains. Resolving to cheer himself with happier thoughts (and at the same time fight against the drowsiness that his relative comfort induced at once) he turned again to that page in his notebook which bore the Poseidon quatrain. And for all he'd never yet laid eyes upon that vessel, after some deliberation he joined to the first quatrain a second, which called her frankly