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12 That I remember, and a dozen more That I forget. I may have been disturbed, I do not say that I was not annoyed, But something of the same serenity That fortified me later made me feel For their skin-pricking arrows not so much Of pain as of a vigorous defect In this world's archery. I might have tried, With a flat facetiousness, to demonstrate What they had only snapped at and thereby Made out of my best evidence no more Than comfortable food for their conceit; But patient wisdom frowned on argument, With a side nod for silence, and I smoked A series of incurable dry pipes While Morgan fiddled, with obnoxious care, Some things that I detested.—Killigrew, Drowsed with a fond abstraction, like an ass, Lay blinking at me while he grinned and made Remarks. The learned Plunket made remarks.

It may have been for smoke that I cursed cats That night, but I have rather to believe As I lay turning, twisting, listening, And wondering, between great sleepless yawns, What possible satisfaction those dead leaves Could find in sending shadows to my room