at it ought to have meant. Carminative--it's admirable, isn't
it?"

"Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?"

"It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," said Denis,
"treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a
cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop
out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label
was a list of its virtues, and among other things it was described as
being in the highest degree carminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't it
carminative?' I used to say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemed
so wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow,
that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfaction which
followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when I discovered alcohol,
'carminative' described for me that similar, but nobler, more spiritual
glow which wine evokes not only in the body but in the soul as well.
The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma
Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of
claret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--I compared
them, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; gin
pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of carmination
values. And now"--Denis spread out his hands, palms upwards,
despairingly--"now I know what carminative really means."

"Well, what DOES it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a little impatiently.

"Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables,
"carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with
carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its
derivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--there was the
idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with
a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of
Venice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow, the interior ripeness were
all in the word. Instead of which..."

"Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Do come to
the point."

"Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote a poem about
the effects of love."

"Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "There is no
need to be ashamed."

"I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that the effects
of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could
intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, fo