THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY
shirts having been all pawned) with the splendid promises which Margaux utters and Lafite re-echoes. Of what avails it now? We have taken the vine leaves from out of our hair and our second-rate life refuses to be comforted. The soda-water spits its little puny, restless, damnable bubbles against the cold white glass of a degenerate child of Bacchus, a glass which once had glowed and gleamed with alternate ruby and amber gold. Of what avails all our learning now? What boots it that we have learned to love, if death, in the guise of an insurance company’s doctor, has robbed us of our beloved? Take us—no, me—up tenderly, treat me with care. Bring out your grocer’s Marsala, your cheapest Gilbey sherry (his dearest is as good as you may drink). Palm off upon us your second-day claret,
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