THE OLYMPIAN ASPECT 



We nodded mysteriously, full of breathless expecta- 

 tion. 



Walter began to smile. He stood up and surveyed 

 us with his face alight with the memory of some great 

 day. To us he looked an heroic figure, even despite 

 the pieces of old drawing-room carpet tied to his knees 

 with string, and his very unkempt beard. 



" You won't exactly understand," he said, mopping 

 his forehead. " But I tell 'ee if you've got to mind 

 some-at after a day at a fair, you'd be fair mazed. 

 I give my word to my mother as I'd a-put sixpence 

 in a raffle for to try to win her a sewing machine, and 

 so when the fellow was making they images on my arm, 

 I sed to un, I sed, put me S.M., I sed, so's I'll mind to 

 put in the sewing machine raffle, I sed, or else if so 

 be as I don't I shall get a slice of tongue pie when I 

 do get home along." 



Our faces fell. Our hearts, full of romance, now 

 became like lead. In despair we put the last question, 

 a forlorn hope in the storming of his heart's citadel. 



" And the other thing on your arms, Walter ? The 

 heart." 



" Cooriosity killed a monkey," said he. " Mind out, 

 I'm going round the corners." 



So was our romance killed. " Going round the 

 corners," was Walter's sign that all conversation was 

 closed- 



If one followed him " round the corners," talk as 

 one might, Walter directed all his conversation to the 

 flowers. To hear him address the plants in the green- 

 house was to think him indeed a god, who by some 

 magic spell turned the water in the can into a life- 

 saving potion. To-day we think that much of the 

 soliloquy was done for our especial benefit. 



" Just a wee drop, my pretty," he would say to some 



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