'Let the direction go,' cried Armour, 'and give the senses flight, taking the image as it comes, beating the air with happy pinions.' He must have been talking of his work, but I can not now remember.

And what made Strobo say, of life and art, 'I have waited for ten years and five thousand pounds--now my old violin says, "Go, handle the ladle! Go, add up the account!"' And did we really discuss the chances of ultimate salvation for souls in the Secretariat?
I know I lifted my glass once and cried, 'I, a slave, drink to freedom!' and Rosario clinked with me.

And Strobo played wailing Hungarian airs with sudden little shakes of hopeless laughter in them.

I can not even now hear Naches without being filled with the recollection of how certain bare branches in me that night blossomed.
I walked alone down the hill and along the three miles to the Club, and at every step the tide sank in me till it cast me on my threshold at three in the morning, just the middle-aged shell of a Secretary to the Government of India that I was when I set forth.

Next day when my head clerk brought me the files we avoided one another's glances; and it was quite three weeks before I could bring myself to address him with the dignity and distance prescribed for his station as 'Mr.' Rosario..