It had been recklessly, defiantly, blatantly
exploiting its collective shame on two-steps and coon
song,--shouting its _de profundis_, each degenerate soul
bucking up its lost fellow with a challenge to go one better and
mock at its hell--when of a sudden, as I say, the moon rose, and
the conductor caught up his stick, and the whole damned crew
floated off on _The Magic Flute_. . . . It wasn't on the
programme. It just happened, and no one paid them the smallest
attention. . . . But there it was: ten minutes of ecstasy.
"They ceased upon the night: and the next news was that after
five minutes' interval they were chained again and
conscientiously throwing vim into _Boum-Poump_ with the
standardised five thumps of jollity on the kettledrum.
"So the champak odours failed--What is champak? Have the Germans
synthetised it yet?--and I awoke from dreams of thee. I walked
back by way of the Quais--by the river:"
Dissolute man!
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can.
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