He tore up the several pages that repeated that oldest most
melancholy cry of the lover, which rang among the deodars, from
viking ships, from the moonlit courtyards of Provence, the cry
which always sounded about Mr. Wrenn as he walked the deck:
"I want you so much; I miss you so unendingly; I am so lonely for
you, dear." For no more clearly, no more nobly did the golden
Aucassin or lean Dante word that cry in their thoughts than did
Mr. William Wrenn, Our Mr. Wrenn.
A third-class steward with a mangy mustache and setter-like
tan eyes came teetering down-stairs, each step like a nervous
pencil tap on a table, and peered over the side of Mr. Wrenn's
berth. He loved Mr. Wrenn, who was proven a scholar by the
reading of real bound books--an English history and a
second-hand copy of _Haunts of Historic English Writers_,
purchased in Liverpool--and who was willing to listen to the
steward's serial story of how his woman, Mrs. Wargle,
faithlessly consorted with Foddle, the cat's-meat man, when the
steward was away, and, when he was home, cooked for him lights
and liver that unquestionably were purchased from the same
cat's-meat man.
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