in
as though to refresh his memory of the details of the scene. "A man," he
repeated--"a small man with a sharp nose, not exactly good looking nor
precisely young, but fascinating." He lingered hissingly over the word.
"He will ask you, 'Can you tell me the way to Paradise?' and you will
answer, 'Yes, I'll show you,' and walk with him down towards the little
hazel copse. I cannot read what will happen after that." There was a
silence.

"Is it really true?" asked white muslin.

The witch gave a shrug of the shoulders. "I merely tell you what I read
in your hand. Good afternoon. That will be sixpence. Yes, I have change.
Thank you. Good afternoon."

Denis stepped down from the bench; tied insecurely and crookedly to the
tentpole, the Union Jack hung limp on the windless air. "If only I could
do things like that!" he thought, as he carried the bench back to the
tea-tent.

Anne was sitting behind a long table filling thick white cups from an
urn. A neat pile of printed sheets lay before her on the table. Denis
took one of them and looked at it affectionately. It was his poem. They
had printed five hundred copies, and very nice the quarto broadsheets
looked.

"Have you sold many?" he asked in a casual tone.

Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. "Only three so far, I'm
afraid. But I'm giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a
shilling on his tea. So in any case it's having a circulation."

Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet
in his hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked
along:

"This day of roundabouts and swings, Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts,
tossed rings, Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small High
jinks--you call it ferial? A holiday? But paper noses Sniffed the
artificial roses Of round Venetian cheeks through half Each carnival
year, and masks might laugh At things the naked face for shame Would
blush at--laugh and think no blame. A holiday? But Galba showed
Elephants on an airy road; Jumbo trod the tightrope then, And in the
circus armed men Stabbed home for sport and died to break Those dull
imperatives that make A prison of every working day, Where all must
drudge and all obey. Sing Holiday! You do not know How to be free. The
Russian snow flowered with bright blood whose roses spread Petals of
fading, fading red That died into the snow again, Into the virgin snow;
and men From all ancient bonds were freed. Old law, old