It's as good as what
you did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me? that's me--all
the time.
WHITE VIOLET.
The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for some corroboration
of what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder. But no! The few lines
that he hurriedly read breathed the same atmosphere of intellectual
repose, gentleness, and imagination as the first contribution. And yet
they were in the same handwriting as the singular missive, and both were
identical with the previous manuscript.
Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No;
they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the use
of certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He had
before noticed the apparent incongruity of the handwriting and the text,
and it was possible that for the purposes of disguise the poet might
have employed an amanuensis. But how could he reconcile the incongruity
of the mercenary and slangy purport of the missive itself with the
mental habit of its author? Was it possible that these inconsistent
qualities existed in the one individual? He smiled grimly as he thought
of his visitor Bowers and his friend Jack.
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