The Debatable Land

g Moselle

e thin mist, though the pavements were still wet. The two opposite currents of flowing humanity on t

see anything peculiar about him now, but it came to him with a shock, so that he knew of a certainty that the relations between them were quite changed. The policeman touched his helmet, the man at the newspa

him where Moselle lived. "Two streets up, riverence," he said, "an' turn to your left; numb

ights, to a narrow, top-story hall, with a skylight overhead and several doors, one with the grimy card o

newspapers, and rumpled rugs. Moselle came through it like a loose meteor, bent on breaking chaos into smaller fragments; hair brushed back and yellowish, dingy with age, eyebrows and mustache that swelled and dropped like cataracts, weight to threaten floors, huge, fat fist, and porcelain pipe in m

he said, in a deep, drawling voice,

boisterous, explanatory. "'Tis a friend of Mephisto, der Faust-devi

pering sound of slippered feet. Moselle at organ lessons in Trinity had never seemed so loose and free, broad, joyous, unlimit

brotherhood. I'

t you goi

aughed

now, and if you did yo

ivacity and took on gravity, fell into

N

Shplendid! Shack!"-gesticulating over Gard-"look you at his head, his eyelid, his shape of der hair-line. Vat? It is super-sensuous Florentine, und de back of his head is Yankee, und so hard you not break him mit an axe. I say i

d better attend to me and learn pure English. Your English is composite, mistaken, and slangy, and you

ong face, seemed burlesquely classical. His speech was flowing, and

a lil' beer, but not much, um so you be not sick. My friend Shack is e

an among the brothers, with whom the guiding of the tongue to simple truth was a matter of searching conscience. And again, at times, both Moselle and Mavering would say things that seemed to Gard to meet the fact or question before them with a sharper recognition, a more instant candor. He admired and laughed in pure joy of the brave, new world that had such creatures in it, with unstraightened ideas that were free to dance in the sunbeam or dig in the mine, and forget whether they had or had not any connection with the soul's salvation.

Episcopal, called High Church, videlicet, protesting mit apologies, und cul

ss b

ell, vat d

iom. Saint Mary's culture is not in competition with a brass band in b

er. Helas! I loss everyt'ing-my reputation, my bes' friends!

it's in y

, dey vant an organis

place, good for your neophyte to sit down in and l

ked at Mavering under overhanging, yellowish eyebrows.

ircle. It's an incommensur

e, Shack," said Moselle, gen

e at

elle, after a pa

bid me assassinate and betray. The inspired text has it that 'All the world's a stage.' It follows that every man is cast for a r?le, and if he tries to introduce anything not in character he appears to make a mess of it, the management docks

er kleiner don' know your stage und your S

that'

house afire? An idiom

ion figures. You stick to a simple retail line of business for cash or you'll bust. You can't take risks and thirty days' credit for a meaning. The English language has no confidence in you. You aren't sound for the market. M

he take indigestion. Go buy de grocery und de beer, Shack, und ve make a dinner here, und to-morrow de kleiner

lder of meat from the baker's, the long room was lit glimmeringly by a lamp or two. And Moselle declared fina

too fast. Let him vait

friends from old, so old, und maybe hi

ve myself. Man ate before he prayed and loved

sic, a fair maiden who walked in a green-and-white garden and was pure and slim as the lilies; a woodthrush in the distance sang a love song that was like a hymn, but never

rds twelve Mavering rose and left. Half an hour

e and old and calm. "I denke you are more lofable als lofing, kleiner, an' for an artist de first's nodding, de l

se reproachfully. The chapel organ would be played badly now; Francis would drone all day in the schoolroom, but there would be no one for him to talk with about Cicero's be

er men, and emotions that he might claim his own since they came from nowhere in particular, travelled hastily. It was something additional to that sense common to humanity of existence as a hurried journey from the unknown to the unknown, his ignorance of his antecedents back of the Foundlings' Hospital. Yet he seemed to feel no curiosity about them. They had no claim upon him, those antecedents, and he had none to them that he cared to put forward. The past might bury its wrecks if it could. His name might be a clue, or

zen of Hamilton, the straight road of a quiet life stretching before him under a cool gray sk

f the evening, and people in the neighborhood had accepted the custom. Some formed habits of their own to meet it, and went to their windows reg

of the snow. It occurred to him that he would rather talk to Mrs. Mavering that night than summon only spectral visitations from Saint Mary's