Spine'!"


The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief;
so was my friend's in his; and so was mine in mine,
as even now my pen drops and I reach for it again.
I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered
an hour later in the old law office where these
two graceless characters held almost nightly revel,
the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed
banquet whose MENU'S range confined itself to herrings,
or "blind robins," dried beef, and cheese, with
crackers, gingerbread, and sometimes pie; the whole
washed down with anything but

"----Wines that heaven knows when
Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun,
And kept it through a hundred years of gloom
Still glowing in a heart of ruby."


But the affair was memorable. The old Professor
was himself lured into it and loudest in his praise
of Hedrick's realistic art; and I yet recall him at the
orgie's height, excitedly repulsing the continued
slurs and insinuations of the clammy-handed
Sweeney, who, still contending against the old man's
fulsome praise of his more fortunate rival, at last
openly declared that Hedrick was NOT a poet, NOT a
genius, and in no way worthy to be classed in the