with Everard?"

"He was born the night of the first big wind, and he has had it in for
the whole world ever since. He's perverse. Nothing but another big wind
will turn him round."

Seeing Arthur puzzled over these allusions, Grahame explained.

"Think of such a man having children like the twins, little lumps of
sweetness ... like Louis ... heavens! if I live to be the father of such
a boy, life will be complete ... like my Mona ... oh!"

He stalked about the room throwing himself into poses of ecstasy and
adoration before an imaginary goddess to the delight of the Senator.

"I've been there myself," Arthur commented unmoved. "To the question:
how do you hope to woo and win Everard?"

"First, by my book. It's the story of just such a fool as he: a chap who
wears the American flag in bed and waves it at his meals, as a nightgown
and a napkin; then, he is a religious man of the kind that finds no
religion to his liking, and would start one of his own if he thought it
would pay; finally, he is a purist in politics, believes in blue glass,
drinks ten glasses of filtered water a day, which makes him as blue as
the glass, wears paper collars, and won't let his son be a monk because
there are too many in the world. Now, Everard will laugh himself weak
over this character. He's so perverse that he will never see himself in
the mirror which I have provided."

"Rather risky, I should think."

"But that's not all," Grahame went on, "since you are kind enough to
listen. I'm going to wave the American flag, eat it, sing it, for the
next year, myself. Attend: the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are
going to sit on what is left of Plymouth Rock next spring, and make
speeches and read poems, and eat banquets. I am to be invited to sing,
to read the poem. Vandervelt is to see to that. Think of it, a wild
Irishman, an exile, a conspirator against the British Crown, a subject
of the Pope, reading or singing the praises of the pilgrims, the grim
pilgrims. Turn in your grave, Cotton Mather, as my melodious verses
harrow your ears."

"Will that impress John Everard?"

"Or give him a fatal fit. The book and the poem ought to do the
business. He can't resist. 'Never was Everard in this humor wooed, never
was Everard in this humor won.' Oh, that Shakespeare had known an
Everard, and embalmed him like a fly in the everlasting amber of his
verse. But should these things fail, I have another matter. While
Everard rips up Church an