o pink.
All over the little academic town the tops of different buildings
took on different tints: here the sun would pick out the green
enameled on a pinnacle, there the scarlet tiles of a villa;
here the copper ornament on some artistic shop, and there
the sea-blue slates of some old and steep church roof.
All these coloured crests seemed to have something oddly
individual and significant about them, like crests of famous
knights pointed out in a pageant or a battlefield: they each
arrested the eye, especially the rolling eye of Emerson Eames
as he looked round on the morning and accepted it as his last.
Through a narrow chink between a black timber tavern and a big
gray college he could see a clock with gilt hands which the
sunshine set on fire. He stared at it as though hypnotized;
and suddenly the clock began to strike, as if in personal reply.
As if at a signal, clock after clock took up the cry:
all the churches awoke like chickens at cockcrow.
The birds were already noisy in the trees behind the college.
The sun rose, gathering glory that seemed too full for the deep
skies to hold, and the shallow waters beneath them seemed golden
and brimming and deep enough for the thirst of the gods.
Just round the corner of the College, and visible from his crazy perch,
were the brightest specks on that bright landscape, the villa
with the spotted blinds which he had made his text that night.
He wondered for the first time what people lived in them.

"Suddenly he called out with mere querulous authority,
as he might have called to a student to shut a door.

"`Let me come off this place,' he cried; `I can't bear it.'

"`I rather doubt if it will bear you,' said Smith critically;
`but before you break your neck, or I blow out your brains,
or let you back into this room (on which complex points I
am undecided) I want the metaphysical point cleared up.
Do I understand that you want to get back to life?'

"`I'd give anything to get back,' replied the unhappy professor.

"`Give anything!' cried Smith; `then, blast your impudence,
give us a song!'

"`What song do you mean?' demanded the exasperated Eames; `what song?'

"`A hymn, I think, would be most appropriate,' answered the other gravely.
`I'll let you off if you'll repeat after me the words--

"`I thank the goodness and the grace
That on my birth have smiled.
And perched me on this curious place,
A happy English child.'