Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/127

Rh heart of the foe! Once more! Another yell—another bound—another cavity scooped out! The deed was done!

And yet, Sir, if a cheese-scoop were your guide, these cavities must needs be circular.

They were so at the first—but, like the fickle Moon, my guardian satellite, I change as I go on. Oh, the rapture, Sir, of that wild moment! And did I reveal the Mighty Secret! Never, never! Day by day, week by week, behind a wooden screen, I wrought out that vision of beauty. The world came and went, and knew not of it. Oh, the ecstasy, when yesterday the Screen was swept away, and the Vision was a Reality! I stood by Tom-Gate, in that triumphal hour, and watched the passers by. They stopped! They stared!! They started!!! A thrill of envy paled their cheeks! Hoarse inarticulate words of delirious rapture rose to their lips! What withheld me—what, I ask you candidly, withheld me from leaping upon them, holding them in a frantic clutch, and yelling in their ears &apos;'Tis mine, 'tis mine!'

Perchance, the thought that

You are right, Sir. The thought that there is a lunatic asylum in the neighbourhood,