hool.

"Oh, yes, it might seem funny ... so does a drunken man who gives up his
reason to a drug seem funny.... but it's no more a joke than that ...
coffee is a vile poison ... I have a sense of humour," he continued,
turning to me, "just as keen as the next one ... but I know, by
scientific research, just how much damage that stuff does."

* * * * *

I read my sonnet to Penton, in a grave, respectful voice.

Peace was patched. We then sat together, under the chequered shade of
the big tree which towered over our table ... Baxter waxed as eloquent
as an angel ... the wonderful, absurd, little man.

Daniel came romping out for breakfast.

* * * * *

Penton reached for the morning's mail. He climbed into the hammock and
read, with all the joy of a boy, the huge bunch of press clippings about
himself, his activities, his work ... a daily procedure of his, I was to
learn. He chuckled, joked, was immensely pleased ... handed me various
items to read, or read choice bits aloud to all of us.

After all, though I pretended to criticise, to myself ... yet, in my
heart, I liked his frank rejoicing in his fame, his notoriety, and only
envied him his ability to do so.

* * * * *

I returned to my tent to work, as I had planned to do each morning, on
my play _Judas_. The dialogue would not come to me ... I laid it aside
and instead was inspired to set down instantly the blank verse poem to
the play:--

"A noise of archery and wielded swords
All night rang through his dreams. When risen morn
Let down her rosy feet on Galilee
Blue-vistaed, on the house-top Judas woke:
Desire of battle brooded in his breast
Although the day was hung with sapphire peace,
And to his inner eye battalions bright
Of seraphim, fledged with celestial mail,
Came marching up the wide-flung ways of dawn
To usher in the triumph-day of Christ....
But sun on sun departed, moon on moon,
And still the Master lingered by the way,
Iscariot deemed, dusked in mortality
And darkened in the God by flesh of man.
For Judas a material kingdom saw
And not a realm of immaterial gold,
A city of renewed Jerusalem
And not that New Jerusalem, diamond-paved
With love and sapphire-walled with brotherhood,
Which He, the Master, wrestled to make plain
With thews of parable and simile--
So ''tis the flesh that clogs him,' Judas th