I lit another cigarette. Then Dolly, pointing to the stem of the
dial, cried:

"Why, here's another inscription--oh, and in English?"

She was right. There was another--carelessly scratched on the
old battered column--nearly effaced, for the characters had been
but lightly marked--and yet not, as I conceived from the tenor of
the words, very old.

"What is it?" asked Dolly, peering over my shoulder, as I bent
down to read the letters, and shading her eyes with her hand.
(Why didn't she put on her hat? We touch the Incomprehensible.)

"It is," said I, "a singularly poor, shallow, feeble, and
undesirable little verse."

"Read it out," said Dolly.

So I read it. The silly fellow had written:

Life is Love, the poets tell us, In the little books they sell
us; But pray, ma'am--what's of Life the Use, If Life be Love?
For Love's the Deuce.

Dolly began to laugh gently, digging the pin again into her hat.

"I wonder," she said, "whether they used to come and sit by this
old dial just as we did this morning!"