"why it is you weep, for I am Colombo whom men call the Dreamer,
and I go in search of the land of my imagining, and I think",
said Colombo, "that you have most remarkably lovely eyes."

"Oh messire", said the lady, "I weep because it is this evening
that I am to entertain the ladies of our Progress Literary Club,
and Donna Margarita whom men call the Spanish Omelet, but who
really, messire, has a lovely voice, was going to sing 'The
Rosary' and now she has a cold and cannot sing, and King
Ferdinand is coming, and oh, messire, what", said the lady,
"shall I do?"

"Why now, truly", said Colombo, "in Genoa it was the judgment of
all the really musically intelligent ladies, except perhaps my
wife, that I sang not an unpleasing baritone, and while I do not
know the song to which you refer, yet I have devoted most of my
life to the composition of a poem concerning the land of my
imagining which might well be sung and besides that", said
Colombo, "I can do a most remarkable egg trick."

So it was that Colombo became for a short time not undeservedly
the life of the Progress Literary Club party. And the tale tells
how, after a paper by Donna Violet Balboa on "Spanish
Architecture--Then and Now", Colombo sang to them the song of the
land of Colombo's imagining. And poignantly beautiful was the
song, for in it was the beauty of a poet's dream, and the eternal
loveliness of that vision which men have glimpsed in all ages if
ever so faintly. And when he had finished, the eyes of Colombo
were wet with tears, for into this poem had he woven the dreams
of his disillusionment. And somewhat ironical to Colombo was the